the budget was advertised in the record on tuesday may 3rd the public hearing on the final budget is obviously tonight with the final budget being due to the county no later than may 14th also the user-friendly budget will be posted on the front page of the district's website which is required to be posted within 48 hours of this meeting now i'll go over the highlights of the budget the main highlights on the revenue side the budget calls for no tax levy increase from the 2122 budget year into next year 22-23 we do have a state aid increase of 12 of over 12 million dollars or 22.27 percent the significant state aid increase is caused by the districts the district being underfunded or under budget adequacy since the inception of the state funding formula back in 2009 or 10. since 2018 the state has been equalizing the formula to fund state aid to underfunded districts by taking from over-funded districts so we have we were underfunded so we're finally getting back to where we should be the district plans to be fully funded by next year which will eventually result in flat state aid in future budgets the budget maintains its full unassigned fund balance which is essentially a surplus account this is usually capped at two percent uh of our actual expenses by the state but with the covid waiver districts maintain a four percent for this year the budget calls for using excess surplus from the 2021 fiscal year of 1.2 million because of additional extra extraordinary aid funds claimed by the district and reimbursed by the state to us this is caused by unbudgeted revenue from the 2021 year statutorily needing to be added to the revenues in the 2223 budget and lastly on the revenue side would be stemi or the special education medicaid initiative of 350 000 and miscellaneous revenues of 890 which consists of interest facility rentals school fines insurance dividends prior year refunds etc on the appropriations side the budget maintains all current staffing and program with the addition of six security staff members for a pilot program at the middle and high school level there is budgeted 126 special education out of district placements in private schools and county special service schools and 753 students at the vo tech pcti the only change from the preliminary budget approval and this presentation on the final budget is one additional capital project from the preliminary to tonight which i'll go over on another side and that's all with a withdrawal from capital reserve and has nothing to do with tax levy one of the biggest increases in any budget area is the increase the charter school tuition which comes directly from the department of education of of almost 2.5 million dollars or 26 from the current year and i'm gonna go into a five-year trend analysis later in the presentation um on the charter schools so while the district received a significant increase in state aid there's also a significant increase in charter school tuition taken right off the top and finally budgeted salaries and employee health benefits that are contractual through collective bargaining our district's total balance budget is 265 million four hundred twenty eight thousand six hundred ninety six dollars which is comprised of the general fund that contains the operating budget and the capital budget the special revenues which are federal grants and state entitlements the district receives there is a very significant increase in the special revenues and that is because of the coven 19 pandemic federal grants that we received the three major grants that were received were the coronavirus aid relief and economic security act or cares the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund or esser and the american rescue plan which we're just receiving now or arp and lastly debt service which does include the recently passed referendum and i'll go more into that on another slide here's an overview of the general fund revenue sources with a comparison to the current budget as i stated before the tax levy has no increase from the current year and stands at 134 million state aid increased by 22 percent extraordinary aid is budgeted significantly higher from the current year to a more actual number because of the district's initiative to claim as many special education costs as possible which is then reimbursed by the state we are not using any fund balance or surplus but we are using that excess surplus i was talking about of 1.2 million because of the extra uh the additional extraordinary aid from prior year the budgeted withdrawal from capital reserve the three projects i'll go over and also the miscellaneous revenues and medic that has not changed and the medicaid reimbursement which is just an estimate from the state and just to note 64 of the district's total revenues is funded by the local tax levy and while 32 percent is funded by the state so a majority is funded by the local tax limit here is an overview of the general fund appropriations broken down in major categories of the budget i won't go through every line however everything is relatively consistent with the current year with the exception of the major increase to the charter school budget line item and the projected charter school enrollment budget comes directly from the department of education with the release of the state aid numbers um you'll notice some other increases on lines and that is mostly salary and benefit projections there is one decrease shown on the maintenance and facilities budget line that is because the district accomplished a lot of one-time projects this current budget [Music] however that budget line is not being cut by any means we are budgeting an increase if you netted out those one-time projects we did this year for inflation purposes for normal maintenance and custodial activities for 22-23 also to put the total budget into perspective salaries and employee benefits consist of almost 78 of the total operating budget therefore there's not much room for discretionary spending after all tuitions are accounted for tuition salaries and benefits are accounted for now i'll go over a five-year trend of our major revenue sources being the tax levy and state aid and then on the following side i'll show the five year trend of the charter school enrollments for the past three years and four years including 2223 the board has prevent presented a um zero percent tax levy increase and for six years the board has presented less than a one percent tax levy increase and has never gone over the two percent cap um two percent tax levy cap since it's been instituted by the state when it comes to state aid the district has seen significant increases over the past five budgets including next year's budget 22-23 the increases in state aid as i said come from the state trying to equalize the state funding reform act or safra formula because clifton has been so significantly underfunded since the state formula's state funding formula's inception clifton would receive approximately 75 million dollars in state aid instead of the 67 million dollars we're receiving um if the staffer formula was fully funded here's a five-year trend of the charter school budget which is based on enrollment 20 to 23 budget numbers are projections approved by the department of education that the charter schools apply for that the district is required to budget for for compliance purposes the actual enrollment counts are realized during october 15th assa audit or application for state school aid at that time the budget numbers increase or decrease during the school year typically the projected enrollment numbers are much higher than the actual enrollment numbers after the asusa audit over the past five years the charter school has had a dr has had drastic enrollment increases approved by the state with the budget increasing from 5.5 million to 11.7 million or 459 students to 779 students here are the capital projects planned for 2223 the locally funded projects through the capital reserve include the banfield and tennis court renovation at the high school a hallway and led renovation at the high school and the new the the new pro the new addition from the preliminary budget to tonight is a project we're looking into to put more parking at school 14.
and that'll be funded through capital reserve other projects funded by the covid grants mostly esther at the moment include window replacements at school one two three four five thirteen and exterior egress store replacement replacements at ccms here's a snapshot overview of our special revenue budget it consists of state non-public entitlements and all federal grants the district receives and for budgetary purposes state and federal grants anticipate a 15 reduction from the current year uh one important thing to note the district has completely transitioned from the federally funded preschool expansion grant to the state funded preschool education aid the preschool education aid or the pea line requires a general fund contribution you see on this slide and that's in order to receive the preschool aid the general fund contribution is a budget line that already existed prior to even needing to transfer it into special revenue and that is for special education preschool inclusion students that were already being taught here by law this also includes the kovid grants as well um sr2 was approximately 11 million and the amount budgeted here the 6 million shown was the what was left over from and the 6 million is mainly going to those window projects i just explained briefly i'll go over how each grant supports specific district programs that serve various specialized populations of students the non-public state entitlements so this the state funnels funds through us to our non-public schools and it supports textbooks nursing services security and technology the perkins grant is for vocational education and that supports our high school career marketing academy title 1 provides instructional remediation and extended day week and year programs to all title 1 schools title 2 supports teacher preparation training and effective instruction in the classroom title iii provides after-school and summer programs to over 600 english language learners title iv supports social emotional learning through professional development idea basic and preschool supports over two thousand clifton students with special needs and this includes private school tuition support uh our 21st century grant which is the clifton's minds in motion program provides after school and summer programs to over 200 students at school 4 12 and 17.
the preschool education aid which provides fully inclusive three and four-year-old preschool for sick for over 600 students and our climate grant which is the pbasis program it's a federal grant aiding the district's implementation and enhancement of all pbsis initiatives throughout the district here's an overview of the debt service for 2223 the debt service tax levy is increasing by nearly 10 million dollars um from 2122 and that's solely because of the referendum that was passed the only existing bond is the sealab project for 894 thousand eight hundred dollars but and that's set to mature in twenty four twenty five the referendum bond will hit this budget with a local tax impact of nearly seven million dollars and state aid that we're all excited about of nearly three million dollars and uh the referendum is set to mature in 45-46 lastly this slide would have explained the tax impact of the budget um but the board is putting forth the budget with a zero percent tax levy to clifton taxpayers therefore there's not much to discuss um there will be no increase for school related uh local taxes from 21 22 to 22 23 and lastly as always it's a great day to be mustang and i'll answer any questions or comments um from the board members okay board members have any questions for uh mr roosie president smith mr abhijava thank you sorry mr you mentioned from 1923 um the board performed a zero percent tax increase is have we looked at what possibly next year would look like i know it's hard to look at your ah year in advance and i always ask you these year in advance questions but what do we what do we picture next year would look like at this zero percent um for 22 23 or future budgets 22 23.
we're maintaining our our budget as 21 22 we're maintaining all staff and programs and everything um so it would it would look as it does now so a year from now when we're back at this juncture again here at a board meeting what do we look like that the administration would put and maybe this is for the superintendent would look like a possible tax increase if needed since in the past couple years we haven't bumped up at all mike if you don't mind uh just please do you're my money guy but this is important uh stuff that i just i have to say this this board has been very very fiscally responsible and the taxpayers should be very very thankful for that five years though of zero percent at some point there comes a reckoning even with the additional state aid that we've been getting conservative conservatively a year from now we're going to have to at least go to two percent to maintain just to maintain because you understand we're going zero percent this year um while the cost of everything has gone up while salaries have increased due to contractual obligations that are well deserved but we're going to zero and the state aid that we got thank god they owe us that money they owe us a lot more um but a lot of that got taken off the top from charter school from you know just the cost of everything even our our referendum money isn't worth what we got a year and a half actually a year ago april 20th what we got a year ago isn't worth a year later um what it was so and it's no secret i've said it publicly we asked for two percent this year and i respect the majority of the board's decision that that's not something this board wants to do and the board that's the board's job right the board hires the superintendent the board watches the purse strings next year it's gonna be a minimum two percent mike if you disagree or you think something else please say so no i don't disagree at all but the one thing we do have to keep in mind is we got addition we were only thinking we were going to get around 7 million in extra state aid this year and if that happened we'd be looking at two percent anyways but i get whatever the state did with their formula they gave us extra funds for being under adequacy but we still are only going to be capped at that around 75 million so we're looking at anywhere from only three and a half to seven million in increasing state aid next year and then we're gonna and then it's either gonna be seven million and we're gonna be tapped out or it's gonna be half of that and then half of that and then it's gonna be fully funded can you explain to the public what it means that if money goes up in terms of charter schools since the superintendent mentioned it at a 26.78 if the money's set aside for these charter schools and they don't fully use it what happens it can be appropriated elsewhere so it'll come back to the district yes okay sorry i have a few questions um for capital projects 2223 because we just came off a referendum vote can you explain the difference between capital projects and the referendum to the public understands um well the referendum was voted on for specific projects very specific projects even though it's a very large scope for our referendum but the capital reserve is set aside every year that the board sets aside and we have discretion of what to prioritize for locally funded projects so in our in past legislative meetings and we discussed um and we know throughout the state mandatory preschool um in a couple years what does that look like for our district in terms of facilities honestly janine might be able to answer that question better or dr robert tozie no problem turning it over to janine anytime miss kusalevich the question was um mandatory preschool universal preschool for not only new jersey but well not in clifton but across the state of new jersey what does facilities look like and how you know what does that picture look like basically so we're expected because we receive p e a aid which is the preschool expansion aid from the state right now that covers the vast majority of our preschool as well as the rental property that we're already using and contracts with other outside providers we are expected by receiving that money to on a yearly basis keep increasing the number of classrooms to serve preschool students until we fulfill the full universe of all three and four-year-old students right now we're getting close to meeting the needs of clifton's four-year-olds but we're still not fully universal and we're just scraping the surface of meeting the needs of the three-year-olds so at minimum even after a proposal that is being explored now to add another rental facility even after that rental facility it's looking like we're going to need somewhere in the vicinity of 30 more classrooms to be able to serve every eligible clifton three and four year old and we do not have any rooms left in any of our schools at this time thank you mr sludge and last question i'm sorry um mr uchi so obviously you know we have health insurance that we provide to our staff and obviously you know the needs and what is needed have we looked at the difference between and is there a savings the difference between health insurance what we currently have and maybe mr daley the vice president can uh discuss this and what an in house insurance may look like at providing the needs that our staff need that you know the staff is looking for in our needs through our union through our administration um is there a save if we ever if we ever decide to look at an in-house insurance i'm not 100 sure i understand your question we do have private insurance so oh you sell filters yourself so because oh it was looked at this i apologize it was looked at this year um but because of the panda the the unknown of the pandemic it wasn't it wasn't advised by our bro our medical broker to look at self-insurance this year however they did explain to the our the finest committee and myself that they are going to pursue it next year to see if it could save the district money thank you mr um mr president i'd just like to head on to that uh miss uc is correct but the the issue is raised with our and insurance broker medical insurance broker i guess for the last two but the the risk and exposure is um the committee's decided twice that the the exposure the risk is a little too high because something um let me back up a minute your your the way that insurance is priced is based on claims that were submitted uh through the prior year so that's really what's reflected in your increase or decrease or keeping the insurance rate flat so that's a simplistic way of looking at it however when you do have insurance it's just that we're covered if they they go through you know a lot of claims for that prior year they're all covered there's no additional financial exposure for that particular year of the rates may go up the following year but you're you're covered if you if you're fully self-insured then you run the risk of if something catastrophic or or extra arises in the terms of claims then then we've got to come up with the money so we might have to deal into our surplus or things like that so the committee's discussed this we've had open discussions with our insurance broker about this and um and we've decided to protect our the worst case scenario for lack of a better description i hopefully answered some of your questions there you did i mean listen many of these questions that i asked is something you know things we've discussed in the past but obviously this sport has always been very as transparent as possible to the public and that's what i just want to make sure tonight was completed so thank you absolutely thank you president smith um i just wanted to piggyback on miss kusalevich um i know about the whole pre-k thing and i know we discussed it in facilities i just want the public to understand basically i know we're eyeing a couple of maybe future properties i don't want to state anything yet just crossing our fingers hoping well but obviously if we don't pursue other properties and god forbid a charter school was to come pick it up if you could just explain the difference of obviously we're going to have to budget to operate the school under our own district compared to the cost that is it going to be more or less if a charter school is to take on to it that way the public understands if tax increase was to happen at least it's going to happen to the benefit of our district instead of a different a charter school coming in taking over and basically taking more money out of our pockets and we're not benefiting for our students in the district if you kind of explain you know per cost i guess it depends um maybe miss kuchalev could talk after me but so it would be so if if a charter school happened to take it and they had the enrollment um we would have to fund that through our budget um also if a charter school took it or rented it before us and they did have the enrollment we still have to meet our preschool universe regardless so we would have to figure out something else anyways um yeah anything to add or yeah mike i think you're right but i think just even to make it more simpler you saw with the additional state aid we got this year two and a half million came off the top to charter schools instead of that money going to a charter school if we utilize that to rent a facility for and listen they're all kids and like i say our kids their kids whatever but for clifton public school students we get the facility and we get the kids instead of giving it to somebody else so i don't know if i explained that well enough but that's a very very simple explanation the charter school projects that we're going to have this many students next year and whatever that magic number that they project where they get it from we don't know the state not only tells us we have the budget for it but it takes it off the top we never see that money doesn't even comes right off the state aid and then maybe a year later mike when when they reconcile the books after the october 15 student count if their projection was off we'll get a refund but it doesn't help us during the budget process when we have to plan with what money uh we have do you need anything no that was perfect and spot on yeah mr smith yeah just just the pho okay just to follow up on the charter school uh one of the problems is it was kind of alluded to here but the state just drops it on there is very very little transparency from the department of education how they allocate how they approve these charters how they increase the number of students it's it's it's like almost pulling out of a hat there's no hearings there's no uh sharing of information with this with the district who's paying for it that's our money uh whether it comes from the state uh that's our money that we're entitled to use so that that's a big problem that needs to be addressed down in trenton so we don't have these uh wild shots coming out of blue you know when we're starting to put our budget together and oh by the way you got another 500 students 200 students when how did you come up with it is there is there a need my my personal thing is i think the clifton district provides a great education why are they providing if we're substandard i can understand the role of a charter school and a charter school is supposed to be locally driven and we have the major charter school in the state of new jersey is a conglomerate so that's these are all problems that go into it so i i just want i i know you folks understand it but i want to explain that to the folks in the public that it's um it's really almost like russian roulette here in terms of budgeting mr paris thank you mr smith um thank you mr uchi for a really thorough presentation this evening i'm going to bring it back to a topic that i they brought up the last couple of meetings i think it's wonderful that as taxpayers for the third year in a row we're not going to see any kind of school tax levy increase i think that's that's wonderful to do and i think it's quite an achievement considering we're in an eight plus percent inflation environment we know that according to mr uchi a couple meetings ago that the vast majority of our additional state aid has already been taken up just in operating costs with salary increases contractual increases as well as insurance etc our council recently i know they haven't been as fortunate they've had to increase property taxes they voted for over a three percent increase this year so my comments here tonight are really not along the lines of maintaining uh zero tax increases so i think we have a higher calling here and according to our our ethics code the second ethics code that we took an oath on is we will make decisions in terms of the educational welfare of children and seek to develop and maintain public schools that maintain that meet the individual needs of all children regardless of their ability race creed sex or social standing in the last couple meetings i inquired about the original budget proposal that dr robert tony robertosi mentioned had been revised and changed and i was curious to understand what resources were proposed especially student-facing ones that we're not seeing in next year's budget and thankfully last week i asked again and i did get a summary of the positions that were originally proposed and there were 58 positions proposed including the six security positions that we have added to the budget here but here are some that i i think we should be aware that seem to me to be very impactful to students two english second language educators an academic coach for bilingual elementary teachers a preschool disabled instructor an elementary reading specialist an elementary resource room inclusion instructor two middle school resource room instructors two high school resource room instructors one speech therapist the social worker for the child study team two elementary counselors and two nurses the remainder of those 58 positions were elementary grade level teachers media specialists custodial maintenance staff and some additional security positions perhaps some of these 58 positions were nice to haves i just find it difficult to understand that not even one of these requested resources that i just listed which are focused on some of the most needful students in our district didn't make it into the budget and i'm also concerned that that time is not on our side here and in the not too distant future we're going to impose even larger demands on our taxpayers i know it's late in the game here but i with this with this understanding this is this is my rationale i'm not going to be supporting the budget tonight because i don't think we're providing what we need to our students and i think we're setting ourselves up for some rather significant increases in the not so distant future [Applause] anyone else have questions on the budget board members okay seeing none we will then um okay we're going to go to public recognition this will be public recognition for the budget only this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of clifton for the purpose of addressing any matter relevant to the budget residents and residents are requested if in person to sign the register provided for this purpose all speakers are asked to state their names municipality in which they live and subject matter before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by members of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and a response will be forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by board members the board asks the members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees of the board are discouraged and will not be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of new jersey the board bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments and letting these legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments so anyone that wishes to address the board on budget items please come to the podium good evening everybody my name is john o'reilly and i'm a social studies teacher at clifton high school i have had the honor and the privilege of serving the clifton community over the past eight years and strongly believe that clifton is one of the most community oriented cities in the state of new jersey and i've also had the pleasure of speaking with hundreds of clifton residents throughout my time and within each of them there lies a spirit of mustang pride and a strong belief in the one clifton motto i've been watching the board meeting since we went remote during the pandemic in the year 2020 and i saw that same clifton spirit at those board meetings by both members of the board as the community as a whole numerous board members have shared respect and admiration for the staff and students that were struggling to get by during those difficult times the students face so many challenges adapting to the changes brought by the pandemic and you and the states and the federal government made sure that they had the resources and opportunities they needed to get through it your sympathy and support in these times of struggle we needed you gave to us and we truly lived out the one clifton motto words were thrown around like heroes selfless hard-working and dedicated were spoken by each member of the board about the custodians the secretaries the administrators the teachers the paraprofessionals the counselors and the child study teams as well as the nurses that each of those people went beyond the call of duty to meet the needs of the students during the pandemic again we did this because we believe in one clifton but clifton educators and all educational staff have done this since the very beginning the admiration and appreciation for both students and public school staff was appreciated and needed at the time but words do not outweigh actions in terms of their magnitude a couple of board meetings ago i listened to the discussion each of you had about whether or not to raise taxes to benefit instruction throughout the district many that were opposed cited the difficulties of the times imposed by inflation the pandemic and of course passing the referendum and these are of course all true every american citizen is feeling the weight of social and economic challenges and i recognize that some may be feeling it more than others i also recorrect i also recognize that the referendum was necessary because money constraints that have been imposed for the past 10 plus years have made it difficult for us to maintain our schools in needed areas especially foundation what is hard for me to reconcile is the previous hesitations by the board of education in raising taxes even by a minimal amount that i have witnessed throughout my time in the clifton public schools district those in district claim law that these policies go back long before i even came to the school district we have watched through these 10 plus years of enormous restrictions cutbacks roadblocks for both staff and students many of our daily resources classroom supplies and other essential materials are outdated in limited supply or stretch beyond capacity we have lost numerous field trips and extracurricular opportunities that benefit the students because not everything can be done in a 45-minute classroom i know that funding issue by the state government has restricted clifton's growth but many schools throughout new jersey have felt those effects and are still calling upon their community members for financial support and political action against this unjust state funding according to the reports made by dr robertosi and mr uchi at previous board meetings the average taxpayer will pay less money a month on public education with a one percent tax increase less than a gallon of gas in today's climate that is a price that any parent would jump on if it meant substantially helping their children and their peers a two percent tax increase is a bit more than a gallon of gas but again considering the expense of utilities rent mortgages and rising city taxes this is less than a drop in a bucket that will mean the future of our kids success as well as the safety and well-being of our staff if the staff and the students are going to succeed collectively we need to fund and i call upon you to be courageous today and to choose a two percent tax increase because we are one clifton and our staff and our students deserve it thank you have a wonderful day hi my name is dr lori mccoy i'm a clifton resident a parent of two clifton school students one's at the elementary school and another at the middle school and i teach chemistry at clinton i have been there for 14 years i want to begin by recognizing my chemistry students when we started the year they quickly learned that i have let's just say lofty expectations um i told my very high achieving um high anxiety students that there would come a time when they would struggle um and when they did that i wanted them to ask questions um every day i challenge them to think about their what their calculations mean to question how they can alter and experiment to get better results and most importantly to look at their errors not as failures but as opportunities for growth these kids have come so far and i'm proud of each and every one of them so tonight i'm here um not only for my students and for my children um but for all of the kids who call clifton home i'm asking our board members to consider what message a zero percent increase sends to our students do you truly believe that they are worth nothing instead of looking um have you thought about the impact that this decision will make long term instead of looking at the dollar value of what this is going to cost me out of my pocket think about what a zero percent increase in the budget really costs our students how soon does our district look more like patterson where buildings are falling apart and staffing shortages are so great and students are truly struggling on a daily basis then a district like montclair who let's be straight they've pretty much fund everything um what our students have to do without so that our board can say that they didn't raise taxes the kids in clifton are certainly worth more than the bare minimum and i hope that as a school board you see that as well thank you good afternoon good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is dr phillip gasel i'm your life skills teacher at clifton high school and i'm also the vice president of the cea um as some of you know i spent four terms on the board of education in nutley i spent three terms as president i was very involved i feel your pain and your frustration but what you're missing sometimes you're too close to an issue to be able to see what's really happening you just passed the most historically expensive referendum in the state of new jersey by a two to one margin it's never been done before that should tell you a couple of things and what i see is this the citizens of clifton are eager to invest in education they're willing and they prove that they they are they're interested in education so you're you're of two percent budget which will cost about on average fourteen dollars per household the average household is something i think people would be able to accept in the city of clifton to not and i don't want to speak technicalities with you we understand each other by going with a zero budget every year what you're actually doing is shrinking your budget you know it i know it we all know it and you do it for certain reasons but now those reasons are no longer valid the people in clifton are willing to invest in education i think it would be irresponsible to not put that two percent increase in this year you could always change it you could always audit it but to put that forward with this vote would send a powerful message and another thing that this tells me this referendum is that the people of clifton trust you they trusted you enough to pass a historic referendum and they will trust you enough if you go to them and say we need two percent in our budget which is about fourteen dollars per household the average property in clifton sometimes like i said when you're too close to something you're a little too cautious you can't really see what the rip but the big picture is citizens of clifton have a lot of faith and trust in this board and in this administration they just demonstrated that to you so let's take a leap of faith maybe and expand our budget by two percent it'll go a long long way thank you [Applause] good evening i'm going to keep this short my name is rob marmasteen i'm an inclusion special ed teacher at clifton high school i teach 11th grade u.s history 2 right now i'm also the founder and the head coach of the clifton high school esports team club whichever one you want to refer to it as i'm going to keep this fairly short i have a lot of faith in you guys the community has a lot of faith in you guys zero percent is unacceptable two percent minimum has to be where we start for less than it would cost the family in this town on average to go see dr strange this weekend they could fund the education system further in this town to continue reducing the budget means there's less people like me who want to continue to do more for this community outside of our outside to do i picked up a team i established and created something to give more than 40 kids every year for the past three years now two two years something to do after school i built a small community that they didn't have before within their community something they never had a lot of these kids have never seen a soccer field a football field a baseball field these kids don't do that we gave them a place to do something and the community must be to understand that if they refuse to participate in funding the school program they will feel the pain of their property values going down for decades to come lower education leads to an increase in crime if you help to fund the program and the programs at the school you help to fund a better community all throughout the town that's all i have to say thank you [Applause] good evening president smith vice president daily commissioners administrators and others in attendance my name is elias ragsdale i serve as president of the clifton student union and wanted to talk about the budget from a student point of view the board of education has a history of not raising taxes and as you know new jersey state law caps the amount a school district can raise taxes from the previous year's levy at two percent in the city of paterson for the past 30 years they've barely raised taxes and they're one of the most underfunded by local property taxes by tens of millions of dollars and now they're preparing on voting for an 11 tax increase i understand that paterson is a much larger school district but the issue of not raising taxes for a long period of time and then hitting a roadblock is something that we should all be careful of and please do not forget that inflation is a reality prices are increasing significantly and although right now i believe there will apparently be no program cuts will there be an issue down the road as a student i'd want the board to be absolutely sure that extracurriculars will not be limited to budget issues and i'd want due to budget issues and i'd want this board to be sure that we don't miss out on academic or support opportunities due to this budget and tax issue we've been rel we've been underfunded by the state in the past and to rely on them without a safety plan may be a mistake in the future um i ask that you truly think about the decision that you make and the effects that it will have on the teachers custodians nurses secretaries counselors and especially students thank you good evening my name is paul rivera i'm a high i'm a clifton high school math teacher the first message i heard at this meeting was for students of clifton to be literate lifelong learners i think that's a great message and it should be a goal not just here but across every community in the country i teach ells math i have four sometimes five different languages running in my classroom at a time my class size was 28 students 28 students with four or five different languages crammed in a room before we were able to hire another teacher and split the classes it was a lot to deal with but we do what we do because it's the best for our kids without being able to split that class we need we need the funds in order to be able to do things like that to split our classes it's hard to predict how many ells we have coming in into the high school each year and we need to be able to be flexible how do we know if we're going to need extra classes this year in order to make these class sizes attainable for our students to achieve everything that they are capable of in order to achieve the goal of making lifelong literate learners a community needs to commit to being lifelong supporters of students financially with the two percent increase six dollar seven dollars and sixteen cents a month is what i've seen as the projected tax increase and sixteen cents pooled over the community comes to over two point six million dollars this can truly make a difference in supporting our students i'm in full support of a budget increase and for the sake of our students so should you as andrew said earlier we hope the decision you make on the budget tonight is in the best interest of the students [Applause] hi everybody my name is jean carlos gonzalez i'm a long time clifton resident i also work at a clinton high school as a history teacher um i attended school 12 christopher columbus and clifton high school class of 2005.
all i could say is based on information provided here by the teachers the students and the board of ed members we want the best for our students i doesn't matter if you're a red tie or a blue tie i think we could all unite together and say that our kids deserve the best right now unfortunately for our town and many other towns here we have unfortunate shortage of janitors custodial staff at times nurses at times teachers and although we are offering positions and they're available there's been a lot of feedback saying it's not enough that you're offering certain money and our towns are more competitive so we're going to go somewhere else this is our chance to give them a a brighter future and i hope you'll make the wise choice thank you for your time [Applause] good evening everybody i'm shannon sculla i'm an english teacher at clifton high school i've been in the district for 19 years i just want to say a few things i love clifton i never grew up there but it's become part of me i have the best colleagues ever and they showed up tonight [Applause] they showed up tonight because they love our students they are dedicated and they believe in our students and they want only the best for them so i say raising the budget is an investment in our schools our students and our community and our teachers it's only going to make clifton better and make us more one you've had faith in us to do our job and to be with those students and to guide them every day have faith in what we're asking you do tonight let us take the first step together tonight for that better future for our students now it's my turn all right good evening to everyone my name is lori lallam and i'm the president of the cea it is crucial in clifton's public k-12 schools continue to hire the best staff offer the best programs for all the children in this community so they can thrive and become an integral part of this community why this will improve the value of all the property owners in clifton many passionate home buyers feel that school quality for the education of their children is where they will put down roots it also echoes data from the national association of realtors showing that 26 percent of recent home buyers were influenced by the quality of their school district when selecting a neighborhood among buyers ages 30 to 39 that jumped to 46 followed by 36 percent from ages 22 to 29.
as a homeowner you'd like to know all about the factors that impact your property value and your school district is a big one clifton is a big one if your house falls within the boundaries of a great district you'll likely be able to sell it for more than you were in an average one because of increased buyer demand local funding is drawn from property taxes since property taxes are calculated as a percent of property value higher property values translate to more tax revenue to give to schools which in turn helps to pay for teachers paraprofessionals child study teams speech therapists occupational and physical therapists kindergarten aides counselors nurses custodians grounds and maintenance security secretary supervisors vice principals principals administrators directors important educational programs and textbooks according to the clifton board of ed comprehensive annual financial report ending june 30 2019 economic condition and outlook the clifton taxpayers continue to be the primary source of funding for the clifton public school district to utilize in providing a thorough and efficient education for all of its students addressing their many diversified needs these needs include special ed bilingual esls at-risk programs vocational programs develop developing and implementing future budgets will become more difficult if the following current factors remain in place not funding up to the two percent we need an increase a tax increase of one percent is three dollars and 58 cents a month i throw that away once a week at least on stuff that i don't really need to buy a tax increase of two percent is dollars and sixteen cents i'm sorry i think our students and our faculty and our staff is worth that let's be realistic why don't the children staff in this district deserve better don't your kids as we heard the march 24th board of ed meeting regarding the zero tax increase through the superintendent's report dr robertosi commented about the district being underfunded in the past which resulted in cuts that affected staff and spoke about the board of education's role in the budget process dr robert tosi noted that tonight's budget resolution has a zero tax levy increase mr daley under commissioner's comments rehashed the same ideas to keep it at zero percent same thing according to the june 6 2020 article from north jersey dot com if the board were to propose a one or two point tax increase school revenue would increase by 550 to 1.1 million the goal according to the superintendent of schools dr robertosi said is not to cut staff or programs it's a significant nut robertosi said but we can't let it impact our human capital daily said the district will also need the aid it gives to the county's vote tech school and the various charter schools and i disdain the charter schools that's not a secret the children and staff in this district deserve a budget with increase in taxes we need to stop living in the past and not to continue to punish them for something that occurred in the past seniors are frozen when it comes to property taxes almost up there if mr usey as the business administrator is thought of as a professional why aren't you listening to him as well as dr robert tosie don't forget we are here for one thing and that is for our kids in this community and not our agendas or political aspirations thank you and have a good night anyone else wish to address the board seeing none motion to close second yeah we'll do that next we're just going to close the in person yeah that's all right motion to close the in person second no you're making the second second uh now we'll go to could you check yeah see if there's anyone for the budget only bear with me on this somehow it's just sign me up okay uh i don't know if this signed me out of this meeting or what my apologies all right you want to work on that we could uh i we can come back to it uh once you get it back up and running oh actually we have to wait because yep we're adopting next here you are ugh i may have lost everybody in the waiting room they'll have to what's up there we go okay all right um this for those of you that are in the waiting room these comments are for on the budget only i'm going to be admitting tova into the room hi can you hear us [Music] ms felder can you hear us we can't hear you sorry hold on you have to unmute yourself please she's not muted uh maybe mr mcconney can come in here and help us with this is he is he around here honey yeah yeah oh this is not on the budget okay is that a real background all right it is very good i don't know um actually can okay this is uh to address the board on budget okay you have the floor you have five minutes go ahead can we just do a sound check oh sorry do a sound check if you can just can you you're you're muted ms zara could you just say hello to us when you yeah you must be still muted we can't hear you uh let me call eric because i'm not sure why this is we see you can't hear you but that didn't change they had their they had their um could you give us another sound check give us another hello no no that's not it all right i'm sorry i'm plugging the wrong thing yeah i don't think it's them though because now that's two yep though um is the um it doesn't make sense i'll try this person too all right um caller 973-715-8531 we're going to try to admit you into the room sorry it's on the screen hello caller can you uh can you hear us hello caller can you hear us nope guess not try pulling hdmi all right try it okay and that's a phone call once it wouldn't matter caller can you hear us there we go hold on hello try again there we go hold on hello caller can you hear us there you go leave hdmi out yeah you get no signal go ahead can you hear us hi is it me here talking to him yes and this is on the budget only the mr yes absolutely if you could just state your name and your municipality please sure good evening my name is linda white and i'm from clifton um i'm sorry i cannot be in person with you this evening or with my fellow educators who were so eloquent this evening and have my support okay so to begin let me introduce myself my name is linda white i'm a lifelong resident clifton have lived here more than 60 years i'm a proud paraprofessional employed by the clifton school district and i currently serve as the vice president of the clifton education association my comments tonight are about the budget over the more than 25 years that i have worked in the clifton school system and during the years my children were educated in the district i've seen the negative effects of underfunding the district the minimal two percent tax increase dr robert tosie and mr uchi have presented is important for keeping the school district running at its best dr robert tosi and mr uchi were hired for their expertise and experience they know how to run the business that is the clifton school district it is important to approve the budget with the tax increase they originally presented to you when taxpayers approved the referendum last april i believe they show they know the importance of investing in our schools even when it means a tax increase people may grumble about tax increases but they ultimately understand the need for them they understand the need for quality school system for their children and i'm sorry both they understand the importance of a quality school system both for their children's education and for their property values not increasing the budget which extremely detrimental to the district we in clifton always hear that senior citizens cannot afford a tax increase this is not a reason not to provide the necessary and needed funding but the good news is senior citizens can qualify for a property tax free so a property tax increase would no longer be a concern for those listening who are a senior citizen or no one please look into the property tax freeze in closing i'm asking board members to trust dr robert cosey and mr uchi please provide them and our schools with the full funding needed to provide the programs and resources necessary for quality education for clifton students and to build a strong school system for the benefit of our residents thank you so much for your time have a good evening thank you all right miss arik can you hear us now can you hear us participant qualified otherwise just press help i think you're your computer's muted on yours but we should be able to hear you now yeah i'm going to try plugging this back in are we good to go yes we're good to go you uh just state your name municipality and uh you have five minutes all right hung up on the phone line hi my name is andrea aura i'm a clifton school teacher at school 12 i'm also the clifton education association's pride chair i first want to just say since it is teachers appreciation week i would like to recognize all our teachers and staffs and colleagues for doing an amazing job throughout the years and also especially during our pride events i'd like to say with the budget we have supplemented with our pride events to the school and community with programs like family game night at workshops addressing key issues to community outreach to the tune of over six thousand dollars and that's with our ca staff volunteering their time imagine what can happen if you do increase the budget even with two percent the possibilities are endless what our staff can do to the community in clifton i hope that you guys would reconsider the zero percent um budget that we have right now because i would like to read to you your philosophy give me one second i apologize for delay because i did have it up take your time uh the philosophy says the clifton board of education firmly believes that is the inherent right of every child enrolled in public schools to receive a sound education rooted in equal opportunity and delivered in an environment which ensures physical and mental security that is amazing words and this increase can help out every child in clifton and will follow our one clifton slogan i hope you reconsider on the increase for our budget and hopes that everyone on the board really looks back because mr paris did go through a list of needed positions we do need in clifton and without this increase it'll be a shame what could possibilities we are missing out and we might be falling behind and be great to catch above the curve before we do fall behind thank you thank you [Applause] all right um i think ms felder said that she was commenting on the next portion so i'll admit her scene on motion clothes second okay motion to close uh by mr abu dravo seconded by mr awad okay uh 13 adoption of the 2223 final budget i have a motion by mr dale vice president second second by mr awad discussion mr president if i may mr abhijava thank you this is what i want to see past meetings we haven't seen this um i want to make a motion to bump it up two percent um because honestly [Applause] president smith not all second up enough for nothing not for nothing it's not about the 50 teachers well it always is yes but and it's not about stats about who lives in clifton and teaches in clifton to me if this was last meeting i would feel the same exact way to see folks up here and talk to us and tell us what this video dr cassell i have a lot of respect for you okay mr riley we've worked on diversity i have a lot of respect for you dr mccoy i've met her in the past during during soccer and elias too we've worked with him during um sydney new jersey it's student committee so on that on that case i want to bump it up two percent i want to make a motion bump into two percent there's already a motion yeah mrs smith is already in motion on the floor um to pass the 22-23 budget smith okay we're under discussion for that yes mr vice president smith um i take great exception to what i hear tonight um i've been on this board 13 years like 13 or 14 budgets i've done i have a long history of supporting i was on the forefront of every capital project including the referendum [Music] we've kept the budget the taxpayers of this town were consistently over funding paying more than their fair share there's a narrative out here tonight that says there's a zero increase in the budget that is a hundred percent false you've had 7.5 million dollar increase in the budget just from state aid plus other projects from other portions of aid to say that there's a zero increase if you look at the budgets the budgets not the tax increase if you look at the budgets they've increased significantly every year i've supported all the positions that mr tardallo and mr robertosi has provided asked us for that he needs this he needs this supervisor he needs this in in in in our maintenance whatever he needs fine but there's no blank check we are not a corporation here we are not a fortune 500 company we are made up of taxpayers the taxpayers have a say in this as well i'm not unsupportive we'd like you can't have everything you want the government can't have everything you want and this is where this is going we have more than enough money we've have clap when i got on board there was zero money in the capital budget we've done windows stadiums you name it capital improvements over the past 13 years and to think and to put out the narrative that you're being shortchanged is ridiculous so i fought very hard both for the district and for the taxpayers there is more than enough money to do what we need to do it's not perfect it's not the panacea but to put out a narrative and especially since we've been giving very nice raises in your collective bargaining agreements they've been fairly negotiated you've gotten a substantial amount of money that would not have been there unless we have fought for the state money where were you folks when we were only getting 25 million and not the 50 million where are you about the tax abatements that the city of clifton gives to property owners on different projects which give nothing did nothing to the to education where are you when you're down there fighting with trenton about the charter schools and the way pcti is funded these it it's money it's a money is a holistic thing it's not just a two percent increase it's not a one percent increase it's not a ten percent increase it's an entire budget you have a 200 million dollar plus budget up here this is the highest budget we've ever had in the history of this city for the board of education when i saw it on there we were about uh i was 30.
uh i would say there was about 170 million back in the day so you there's been large increases in the budget and i understand what the administration's asking us for but like unfortunately we can't have a planning check to get everything we need there's decisions that have to be made our buildings are not come running crumbling we've spent a lot of money tens of millions of dollars plus the referendum we've spent i would say uh mr yusik can give you an exact number but i say somewhere between 30 and uh 20 and 30 million dollars in buildings over over the last 10 years out of the capital improvement budget and that was came from surplus money that was not spent in the budget you don't when you do a budget you don't do a zero percent increase there's zero percent to the bear to the bones when you budget you always budget enough in there whether whatever line item you put it in to have a cushion so you don't run short we have not run short we now have we were limited to a two percent uh surplus now we were allowed to do four percent the county schools are allowed six percent why so we do have money i don't i don't see that there's uh especially on the capital side anything for seen in the next year that requires the two percent that's not going to make a difference it's not going to make a difference i'm sorry it's it's kind of very hurtful because i fought so hard for so many capital projects get everybody a fair wage the best we can under the circumstances and now you just want after a seven million seven million dollar revenue in the operating budget seven and a half million dollars more and you say oh we need another two percent why not five percent why not ten percent i'm sorry do you have to have a balance in this community and i'm not unsub sympathetic to what our superintendent he's doing a great job you folks are doing a great job but you just can't go pick pockets just because it's it's a number that makes that has some some cachet to it so in future years we're going to have to do different things and i've spoken to my co my colleagues know i've spoken to them in our committee meetings that that's going to change just that the gravy train that from trenton isn't going to last forever there's going to become a time where we're going to have to do raise taxes but this is not the year this is not the year president smith if i may since we're talking about this particular motion so i asked two questions because i i was on the fence coming at this meeting it took me between last meeting this means to really think about as a taxpayer and as a board member as a taxpayer i don't want to see my taxes go up but as a board member i had to ask two questions earlier to mr uchi which was from 1920 from 19 to 23 we've raised zero percent and i asked them how would we how would we look next year and he said and so dr robert told me at least two percent my fear that at least two percent is not gonna be at least two percent it's gonna have to be more than that mr uchi how much how much did you and and the administration originally proposed when we went to the finance committee we were looking at anywhere between two and a four percent increase with the the positions that mr paris um commented on okay so to me i had a four percent to know but at a two percent and when i asked mr the numbers is at listen 85 annually yeah and i made a big stink last time about not raising taxes for taxpayers but as a board member i have a we also have a duty to this district and we talk about boots on the ground if our boots are on the ground are telling us we need more money at two percent i'm gonna listen yeah there's some taxpayers who don't have kids in the district but you know what at the end of the day i can live with it i have a duty to taxpayers yes but we are board of education members in this school district and at 85 dollars annually i'm i can go home and sleep comfortably tonight out of two percent mr president mr president kite okay who was that me and mr daley mr daley i'm sorry mr wagon um i i saw someone move over there so i don't know what what i thought someone else wanted to speak oh sorry ramadan trying to fix my sleep schedule so i was on the fence about a tax increase uh but after our last facilities meeting and seeing basically you know with the pre-k and you know projects in the future are coming forward i my mind started to change and looking over the budget and honestly tonight our teachers really did influence and seeing the public speak i was always against it up until now i do have a change of heart i do believe we need we should raise the tax increase uh i know she mentioned in the past two to four percent i am comfortable with a two percent i would prefer a three percent just to be in the middle um if my math is correct there should be like a hundred dollars and change annually maybe one two one twenty eight i did 126 okay yeah so i'm i'm 100 behind a two percent increase um i would open a discussion for a three percent but i'm fine with two i think you know we're always saying that we want people involved and to people to voice our opinions and to people to come to these meetings and i seen an entire army come out tonight and you know uh one of the gentlemen i i'm sorry i mispronounced your name uh i think it was riley you know uh you're you made very valid points and honestly just hearing everybody's uh discussions i i do fully uh you know i fully support a two percent increase minimum okay further discussing miss password did you have something thank you so um i write down what people say key words because i have to look at them visual learner right crucial critical faith in teachers investment wise choice rainy day best interests of the students safety plan what our students are worth that one kind of really sits with me more than anything invest in our children we do what we do the people of clifton are willing to invest in our children and alan thank you for breaking it down for me i waited for that i know you were working on it last meeting and the last one is children are worth better a colon 12-21 24-1 couldn't agree with you anymore i'm not going to support it either [Applause] mr president sorry mr conover um so i also i'm not only a board member i also have two daughters in the district soon to be three when she's of age um and being a board member and being on finance and even being a part of the whole rally when we were underfunded and going to the state and trying to get money i understand the situation that we're in um and i think the pictures being painted here a little bit differently um and i just want to quote some numbers here so everyone understands because when you look at a budget you need to look at the full budget imagine imagine having not only a salary but also some stocks and options and then your parents also giving you money if your parents gave you a certain set of money every year let's say two percent in this case but then this year the stocks and options gave you a 10 fold increase would you then go back to your parents and ask them for that two percent still just because you're allowed to just because you can doesn't necessarily mean you should right so let me give you some numbers here from 19 to 20 we had five million in state aid so instead of the two and a half percent we would have gotten or two and a half million dollars we would have gotten by going to two percent we had a five million state aid which is double of what a two percent increase would be 20 to 21 we got 2.6 increase so we didn't go to the 2.6 million increase 21 to 22 we got a 12 million dollar increase so instead of taking that two percent 2.6 million dollars we get a 12 million dollar increase 20 to 23 this year we got a 12 million dollar increase so instead of taking that two and a half percent we get a 12 million dollar increase which if you calculate 21 to 22 we were at 196 million now we're at 209 which would have been a 10 increase we're giving you a 10 increase in this budget so to say that we're not giving you two percent we're not we're giving you 10.
we're giving you five times the amount that you had last year so i don't i i just don't understand that the other side of the argument is saying that we're not funding students and what the student's worth i would love to give my daughter everything i would love to give her a ferrari a million dollar house you know a built-in pool that's not where what we're afforded to do we have a couple hats here as as commissioners which is one is for for the students and of course again my daughters are in these schools and i sympathize with you i understand it's tough i know covert was tough i know going through all these things is tough but we've given you the increases in your salary across all bargaining units we've given you increases in your in the budget overall and with the state aid offsetting we don't have to go out to taxpayers and clobber them on the head at a time as we said when inflation is 8 10 so even if the information is eight percent this is a ten percent increase based off of last year's number so i understand and i'm sympathetic with the fact that when you you're asking to go to the two percent and again i want to put all these programs in place and i said it last meeting and i'll say it again the answer is not no the answer is no for now for me i can't see going to another two percent giving that we're already giving a 12 million dollar increase this year so that's my take on it sorry thank you anyone else mr smith mr paris yes uh mr canelo mr uchi two meetings ago detailed out the increase that we got from the state and if my memory serves me right it was all it was over 12 million dollars but what was left after basic operational cost increases these were things beyond anyone's control these were contractual obligations increases for charter school etc there was 660 000 left wasn't a 10 percent increase really going too instructional to the classroom to to resources that are facing students the issue i brought up is i see a list here albeit large large requests for 58 positions but digging down inside there i have a hard time in my head rationalizing especially the special ed elementary special reading specialists counselors speech therapists social workers these to me serve the most vulnerable part of our student community um and i think and with all due respect to mr daley i think you've done a wonderful job in previous sports over the years to to be so fiscally responsible but in addition to that fiscal responsibility we have a responsibility according to our own code of ethics to really provide for our our students and i just i just see something between no changes no increases and i maybe if i saw a few of these positions in there i'd say okay there's been some discussion on this topic there's zero zero of these positions have been added uh so i think there's i think we're creating gaps here and i also think in the future we are go and everybody's mentioned this including mr uchi that we will have increases in the future and we may exacerbate those increases they may be much larger than a two percent i don't know what the right magic number is but i do know that this budget does not serve to get us back even to where we were years ago and the kind of cuts we've had to make make and i think we're doing a disservice to our to our students especially our most vulnerable in-need students anyone else wish to address i'm looking around the room and i'm i got to think this out but there's eight of us here if the vote goes four four split what happens to the budget okay but we have a deadline of the ninth correct so what happens tell me explain the process we're not leaving here until we vote on that well well explain what would happen next hmm mr president yes i think i think i think council if if there if there is if we don't pass a budget i think it's left up to uh the county superintendent is that correct but we are here and it's our job and our duty to vote so we should at least hash it out go as many rounds as possible bring your sleeping bag and hash it out tonight why should the county superintendent get involved then what's on purpose all right so i have council looking into um we do have an option for board members to attend virtually i don't know what lucy's situation is um if there was a situation where we needed her vote virtually if she'd be able to do that i don't know i don't know why she's not here so i can't answer that we're just looking for the legalities of it let's call the question now all right so you have um the adoption of the uh budget which shows a zero percent increase before we go to roll call i have been as dr robitosi knows even as of today we had the discussion um i often felt from when the budget was presented um that i you know that i could have been the only yes vote to go to a higher percentage then hearing mr paris uh you know state his strong opinions to it um i'm not so much set on a percentage i just didn't and again i'm not looking at any other boards in the previous years but i think this the the board of education for the last four years went to a zero percent increase um and i i wholeheartedly hear what mr daley's saying um i have some problems that the board took to tonight um we we passed a preliminary budget we gave no direction um other than mr paris uh of that the board was interested in going to anything um other than that i however did voice that to the superintendent from the beginning that i felt it was not um i felt it was not um safe for this board to not have an increase um that yes all those positions are very important that maybe the district maybe the superintendent and mr usee doesn't present all of those items but there could be some i wanted to see what it would look like at you know so i was always kind of at two percent but what as mr awad said well what did three percent how many of those positions do we bring back for three percent how many of those positions are great positions but we could get away with you know implementing them next year so while i was always in favor of some percentage increase i just felt and i and i will continue to to go that route i just feel right now for the superintendent the business the business administrator and chairman of the finance committee that this board did not give any further direction the i believe the superintendent would have had a proposal here tonight with a two percent or a three percent but the uh my maybe i'm wrong i'm i thought the board wanted the superintendent to present a zero percent increase so and again i was against that i was against it from the beginning that doesn't change my stance i'm just trying to understand why when we did the preliminary budget that we didn't give direction to these two gentlemen so even with that being said [Music] with all that mr paris mentioned on the original proposal that wasn't a two percent increase all those all those items would probably be about a four percent increase am i correct yes that's correct and um there was also a two percent proposal too right which the board turned down correct so while those positions are very important and i agree with that but are we presented with you know what's that gonna cost is that five percent and what does five percent equate to can we if we're looking at two percent and again i said i'm in favor of it from the beginning what do we get from that list at two percent how many of those items how many of those teachers can we get with the two percent so i think the board needs to know that up front um and if you're asking for that whole list what what percentage would that be president smith just to piggyback on why some board members have changed well since that meeting until now we had committee meetings and honestly what turned the table for me 180 was the facilities committee when mrs kusalevich dr danny when we were discussing about you know pre-k and you know a lot of items and it was a long meeting i think it was like a three-hour committee meeting basically you know my feelings have changed and i was leading more towards the tax increase on that because if we decide to go zero percent next year or the following year let's be honest realistically we might have to increase dramatically it's not gonna be a two or a four it's you know if i'm not mistaken we might need to go like what i'm searching correct me for wrong like eight percent or six percent no i'm not disagreeing when you have every right to change and all i'm saying is wouldn't have been better to let the superintendent and the business trader know tonight to present two percent and then that would have been what we were voting on that's all i'm asked that's all i'm making the statement of my stance has never changed so that's not the issue here i'm just saying i think it would have been easier on the public it would have been easier on these two guys if they came forward and said hey this is what we want we can settle on uh two percent we can settle on the three percent whatever the number might be and there's people that are against any increase and i respect that that opinion and again i wasn't on the previous boards and last year was a different situation with coven but going to five years without a zero and again i hear what mr canova said it's it's not it's not a true number however as mr paris said many of those things i think are warranted we rely on these two gentlemen to run our district and they came to us and said this is what we need to run a thorough and efficient education so while we have an obligation to the taxpayers two percent allows us at least the two percent allows us that we don't um have to go to the tech to the taxpayer for approval on that um so again i don't know where the board wants to go with this we you know we can turn this down if that's what you wish to go but what number do we have to be at to get those items on that list and what number do we have to be at that if we're compromising that's all point of order i called the question so we should vote on this and then come up with an additional discussion on if we want to go for an increase yes after just a double check we're voting on a two percent not a three right now no we're voting on to approve the budget voting on the budget now hold the question on the budget that's on the agenda i'm calling the question i want to vote on it and then you can have another motion and then have another discussion after everyone got to speak on this on this topic then we'll call the question yes okay give me a roll call please the motion on the agenda the zero percent yes mr drabo no mr awad no miss bassford no miss beltran yes mr konova yes mr paris no vice president daley yes president smith no [Applause] mr smith yes smith i'd like to make a motion to have a discussion in considering going two percent second okay motion on the floor to increase the budget by two percent also second by miss bassford okay discussion uh administration if you could give us a and a little clarification what two percent looks like it's can we know what it's going to go towards because but that's the point can we qualify so administration can work on this and this way no we're ready yeah it was ready a while ago miss bass for the only reason why we're ready is because this is what we presented in in finance committee we we presented a two percent and a four percent um dr robitazi i'm not in finance so i don't know what was presented and that goes to the committee of the whole we don't get to hear anything so next time we have a discussion like this with finances it would be good to the rest of the board to know what was presented so we can all digest that information board minute was that in the minutes maybe not as specific as yeah probably not as detailed you know and every board member has an opportunity to ask the chairman of finance and the superintendent and the business trader any questions they have on it so um things going on tonight so so a 2 increase and and remember this money could be moved in between positions but a two percent increase would get us a new physical education teacher which is needed at clifton high school our class sizes are way over where they should be and that came in an audit from our schedule auditor there are safety concerns there will give us an additional esl teacher it would give us one academic coach it would give us one elementary reading teacher one elementary self-contained one middle school uh resource are our agenda resource room thank you resource room high school two high school special education teachers [Music] not that two nurses one elementary counselor and then as has come up here in the past with the cleanliness of our buildings and getting work orders done the goal was to get four additional custodians four additional maintenance uh staff members and then this would get us eight security members right now with our zero we were able to get six so this would be eight and that would be um four uh security at the high school and two at each middle school so can i can i repeat really can i repeat really quick i got 26 did i do my math wrong no because you have the eight you have the six yeah the a goes to all right right correct thank you thank you hey danny hey any other discussion so you said esl academic coach elementary reading teacher self-contained uh middle school resource two high schools sped two nurses one elementary counselor four custodians four maintenance and eight security members i mean two extra only and again these are round numbers this is you know the average salary guesstimating the benefits package that they're choosing so you know this is it could be you might be able to get an additional position might be less than one position but it's about 21 positions all right mr usey uh off the top of your head an estimated uh increase of the average taxpayer 85 annually and 7.16 monthly did you repeat that right i mean yes this is separate from the referendum this is the general fund um a two percent would be 85 annually seven dollars and change a month yeah how much was the referendum was approximately 205 i have a question yes if it goes to the if we don't vote on this tonight and it goes to the county can they cut it even further or do they they leave it the way you originally because i have no experience with that ever happening i've been a superintendent in 10 years i don't judy i don't think they would cut okay i don't know for sure but but i wouldn't see them as cutting so listen i feel like i'm at a negotiation we're at two percent we're at four we're at four four for one and a half percent can we get an extra vote mr president the whole point of the the administration was hoping these listen i just want to explain one thing right these positions i understand that the budget did increase this year we've mentioned over and over again that this district was underfunded for many many years when you compare any district our size with another district in the state our administrative to student ratio is below average our teacher to student ratio is below average that means we would have had many more teachers and more administrators over the years had we been properly funded but mr daley is right the taxpayers were picking up that extra but we were never fully staffed so you're saying to go up no we're at 5 30 oh if we were going to go through this exercise um i i would have done a much deeper dive with the administration i'd want to look at the whole org chart uh maybe or not not only the org chart but the the expenditures maybe we can move some money from one place to the other to do it off the cuff like this is totally unacceptable to me and i still believe firmly believe that the increase in the budget you know again it's it's not it's not about uh you have to make decisions and where do you put your money and how do you allocate it so i would have looked at this budget in an entirely different way uh but i just again as mr konova said you got a large increase the the the fact that we've here and the only one that's coming out here the the people that have come out here i haven't heard one word from one taxpayer everybody who spoke here is uh affiliated with the uh collective partying the union here so that's that's everybody who's i didn't hear from one citizen that's not dr mccoy excuse me he has the floor go ahead so that's troubling but i would i would have uh asked the administration a lot more questions about how we can achieve those goals uh we kind of shorted it that's oh i'll admit that i didn't go into it but um i'm still i'm still at this point this time and if we have to spend money you're you're you're banking money you're it's not even in the budget with the line item mr wade you mentioned that oh we might have to get some buildings not one diamond that you're talking about is going to go to in any line item that goes to purchase or lease a building so i i and i fully understand i've i've shared that with everybody that i know that there's a point in time that we're going to have to do that i don't think this is the year that we have to do that okay any other discussion yeah so i have a question so we mentioned our ratio is lower than other schools what is our ratio in respect to the average and how many associates is is that different uh what i was talking about mr conover was our administrative costs and our administrative costs compared to other districts our size are much below the average i think mike has a more exact number that he's told me in the past but it's it's a year old because we don't have the new number yeah that's right i don't know exactly the per like administrator two people on the top of my head but we're i think we're in the bottom five of administrative costs of k-12 districts of our size so for me that's new information right but so to understand that that means that other districts obviously have more staff compared to their students right the higher ratio but how many staff members would we need student facing student touching that would get us to where we need to be we would need several more years of of at least two percent to make up but because mr konov what are you talking about is you're making up for many years of underfunding but the compounding of that right the base never got larger the base and so you know we're trying to make maybe we never get caught up you know so right now we have about 10 500 students something like that right 10 9 i think it was right so what is what is that average number what is the number we need to be at what to one meaning number of staff to students no i'm talking about teachers i'm talking about people who interact with teachers with with students on a daily basis and help them achieve their goals in learning is that we're referring to i could tell you if you want to talk about ideal student to teacher ratio yes should be fifteen to one and what are we yeah fifteen classrooms um fifty excuse me fifteen students per teacher and what are we at now nowhere near that uh to give you an exact number if anybody can help me out i don't know but we're in um danny only only preschool is at 15 to 1 because it is required to be so um depending on grade span we're looking at some of our primary grades are probably in that 22 but when you get up to the middle in high school you're talking 24 plus but if you're asking me the perfect world what is the ideal class size it's 15.
15 is the ideal class size that's why it's 15 in pre-k but it's it's 15 throughout and i'm not saying we need to get to 15 but we do have classes that are 28 29 30 students see that's what i'm saying sorry so this metric is a new metric to me i'm saying if that's the average we need to be at then and that's new information for me so if we want to have a 15 to 1 ratio if that's the average and that's best for students and they succeed and we're going to see their their academic progress increase and that's what we should be doing i'm not afraid to go to bangkok and take it all but it depends so that's why i'm saying that the the people who interact with the students every day and for for their learning for their progress for the academics if we had a 15 to 1 ratio that would make us the school we want to be and what is that number so if we wanted to budget something like that what would that look like i mean how many teachers tens of millions of dollars a teacher oh yeah in general costs a hundred thousand dollars i know people say well teachers don't make that much money salary we're gonna say sixty thousand dollars benefit package if you know we're estimating if you're getting family benefits is 35 40 000.
an average employee and i'm saying an average if it's 60 it could be 65.70 and that so let's say an employee costs a hundred thousand dollars to make the math easy a one percent increase on our budget is how much mike well one point three million probably ten earlier that's thirteen teachers we have sixteen hundreds that we're not even making a dent this year these twenty thank you if you give us these twenty 21 staff members we're asking for but we're not making a dent yet but it's but we're getting there and and that was the point at why why we wanted at least a two percent dr danny is there yes yeah i just wanted to piggyback so you're telling me the average class size right now is about 28 to 1. about about oh that's high i'm gonna say if you take the average in our district right now we're probably 26 25 okay 26.
well i know a lot of people i've said this in the past was one of the main reasons why i left this district at a younger age when i was in seventh grade and i was fortunate for my parents to put me in private school was one of those many reasons those that was high classroom size fun fact my graduating class and my school was 22 people the average classroom size was nine people so my graduation ceremony was a whopping 30 minutes valedictorian speech 22 people one time on stage and we left but i was blessed with a father that worked extra hours and was hard to pull me through that a lot of students are not fortunate a lot of situations are but we should at least strive to get to that number 15.
i know it's a long jump but it's the effort that we got we gotta at least kind of put that as a goal and head to that direction but that's something that could be discussed on a long term basis hopefully yes miss belchon um so me and jokingover are doing math over here um how many teachers front-facing do we have because we're trying to figure because the math figures out that we need 700 teachers but we have 700 teachers so i'm trying to figure out where we're going wrong to not get to a lower ratio i'm not sure what your question is okay so how many teachers do we have in district total approximately we have 1600 full-time staff of those certificated i don't know how many because we separated by certificated staff okay but classroom teachers 700 yeah so the 11 thousand divided by fifteen comes out to that number yes so i'm just trying to figure out what they're doing classes that are mandated to be smaller though but that's why that's why that number isn't quite accurate you have special education classrooms you have some you have yeah so that's why i think we we want to know what the true number is guys i'm not i wasn't i mean i know i know we had a finance committee meeting for three hours where we presented our plan and you guys told us you wanted a zero if i had known tonight that we were gonna i would have had a whole presentation for you so i think it just in the future if we're gonna talk next year about going to bangkok or whatever we i won't be here but whoever sitting here will have to say no i mean you know what i'm prepared but what we were numbers so i'm answering why don't we why don't we just set another meeting for this before the ninth or whatever date it is that we need to submit this budget as an emergency meeting but listen guys we presented we presented a two percent we presented a four what i'm saying now me personally i really want to go on the agenda you voted i may want to go to bank cap right now is what i'm saying based on this conversation i don't even want to go to two percent now because i want to be competitive against the other schools that are out there so if that metric is what what is the competitive number you're going to need jesus to come down you're going to need a long list of things it's not just you know enough higher or 700 people we're going to put 700 we can't no we have 700 is what we're saying is the difference 30 people yeah but how efficient is that i mean this is a bigger game plan it's not something you're just going to write teachers i understand but we're under discussion yes mr smith yes mr paris we're not going to get to you know nirvana that's for sure but there are some facts that are true right we know that our class sizes are larger than average and the math that you've done doesn't take into account special needs classes where you can't put 30 autistic students in a classroom right so these numbers you can't just do that that kind of math you have to kind of look at um and that's why that's why the ratios are what doctor roberto is mentioning we also know and you can google this because i did a couple of meetings ago that in passaic county other than prospects park we pay we spend less per student than any other passaic county municipality and prospect park has one school that's a k-8 school so it's not even a good comparison so we know we're fiscally very responsible and thanks to mr daley and preceding boards but we're at this point where we we need to start making a den in this mountain if we want to get to we're close to nirvana right um i don't think we're going to make it in one big big lump here but the point is we need to start um so i'm not asking for nirvana i'm asking for average nirvana would be to the right of the bell curve what we're saying is we're to the left and what i'm saying is to get to the middle which is average which is nowhere near nirvana what is that going to take and unfortunately we're just not prepared for that question because we prepared for zero percent budget and and here we are which is why i'm saying maybe we need a day or two to figure this out i guess we could go to two percent now i know we have the votes for that but i almost feel like we're that's not satisfying to me now knowing this information and we do have the option of going to bank capital all right uh discussion any other discussion on the motion all right seeing no other discussion the motion i'm sorry if we went to bank cap how many positions we get oh god like student basis so it's probably what six or eight percent so i'm looking off the same thing mr paris is looking at so it would be 58 positions 25 are classroom teachers support staff would be one nurses counselors custodians it would be eight custodians maintenance four support staff a full security team of 16 25 actual instructional in the classroom teachers two more assistant principals for our larger elementaries i'm sorry 29 teach uh instructional teachers don't see the lister so we're going from 2 to possibly an eight percent that's stuck ah four oh okay all right so if we motion on the floor is two percent we're under discussion for the two percent yeah just just for clarification um i believe if you wanted to go with bank cap you do eight percent if we're gonna go to the two percent we're gonna lose not all of the bank cap like two percent are gonna expire that's correct and then uh after if you did the eight now i'm just talking academically if you did the eight percent now you do you're back to two percent that's the following yeah super quick what the bank have to talk about is years the district doesn't go to two percent the years years were zero the state gives you a three year leeway to go to go over two percent without going to the public because of going to zero percent or lower than two percent so once those three years expire the fourth year hits you can never get that going to zero again so we're at that point where we went to zero in 1920 and we could use that two percent to go over to over the typical two percent without a vote but that will be expiring after this year if we so if we went to four percent we would that wouldn't expire and we would use it if we go to just two percent you have to go to the 22 23 2 before you use bank cap [Music] that was presented in the original presentation yes it was can you just one more time just read out what we would get at four percent sorry if you can for everybody so this between the soup yes closer to six but yes so between the superintendents and working with all the whole entire administration and staff we have two physical education two bilingual two assistant principals one esl coach district wide then for special education another secretary for the child study team to travel to all the buildings another preschool disabled classroom teacher a reading specialist teacher at the elementary level a rece one resource elementary teacher two middle school resource teachers two high school resource teachers a speech therapist a social worker certified elementary staff then that could be just it's just classroom teachers to media specialists that that was going to be determined on mrs kucilewicz's needs and her vision two more nurses two counselors four custodians four maintenance um this is a full bore 16 um security team that would be throughout the district not just the secondary level and then a supervisor of that security team i'm not sure how we would do it to be able to have the option of voting on the two different options to move the first one that we're on and then make another motion for whatever we should do after that so right now the two's on the floor two is on the table yes so it'll be two percent and another motion for another two on top if the two percent would fail that's too much listen i get it you lose the bank cap but let's talk about four percent four percent you're talking about 171.76 cents then you talk about 207 for referendum then you talk about on top of that three percent from the city i understand but were you exactly what you said before the money isn't relevant not i get it listen listen listen listen we went from eating at mcdonald's going to having a steak now because my assumptions jump in once my association is realistic though was that we were on average on par and we were giving a 10 increase in this year with new money so i was like okay that's pretty good i don't know why everybody's complaining here now new information says we're not even at average so why wouldn't we go to take that bank cap joe going from a honda to a maybach over and we're not analogy in five minutes but that's not true that's not true you're going from the old the old duster 86 duster to a honda we're going to average now is what i'm trying to say or closer to the average that we could get all right here we go we're going to um vote on the motion for two percent tax increase on the 22 23 budget roll call please mr abedrabo two percent yes mr two percent yes miss password yes miss beltran no mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley no president smith yes motion carries [Applause] all right next to uh board committee reports okay we'll start with um diversity and inclusion committee mr abu drabbo thank you for uh president smith diversity committee diversity inclusion committee excuse me minutes of april 19 2022 meeting that diversity inclusion committee began at 1 pm attendees were myself board commissioner dana beltran administrators assistant superintendent janina kucilovic principal ahmed hamda rodriguez teachers please if you want to celebrate go out in the hallway john o'reilly jackie turk courtney terry students i will not say the initials topic discussion was number one surveying in the middle school students regarding diversity inclusion topics was discussed a survey was created will be reviewed by assistant superintendent janine kusalevich the survey will be compared to a pbsis survey that is scheduled to be shared in june the committee discussed how these servers would be used after they were completed number two the committee discussed different aspects of how curriculum can be enriched the addition of literature to the english department as well as the history department was discussed number three the committee discussed the importance of holding different workshops for the staff miss the llama and mrs kusalevich will work collaboratively to discuss different workshops that can be held in dates to hold them number four the committee discussed where awareness amongst and how we can better utilize them to bring awareness of diversity inclusion topics excuse me these months can be better used to celebrate students and staff to different backgrounds and abilities around the district and number five the meeting adjourned at 202 pm committee terrified my job and dr albertosa will work collaboratively to determine the date of the next diversity inclusion committee meeting any questions on the report seeing none next we'll go on to technology mr canova sure uh technology president was jim smith dana beltran mr jim daley uh mr allen paris administration president dr robert tosi mr jangaro mr mountain meantime 506-533 items of discussion facts line conversions mr mountain updated the committee that the aging copper pots p plano old telephone service lines used for the district fax machines have been failing at a very high rate and the phone companies are struggling to maintain them administration plans to review district facts usage and consolidate wherever possible and shift all faxing services to an internet cloud-based platform over the summer with a goal to have new and system new system up and running for the start of school in september out of two referendum security projects mr mountain provide an update on the security projects cabling has begun at chs and should commence at the two middle schools soon as well the last of the equipment orders for network equipment clocks pa systems and strobes have been finalized in installation schedule we plan to minimize disruption to students and staff as soon as shipment of status is known three new products update mr mountain updated the committee about two new products being tested for future use five promethean brand branded interactive whiteboards are currently used in use at chs compared to the smart branded boards the district has used in the past lightspeed classrooms management systems is being piloted in the middle schools to assist teachers in managing students chromebooks during class time item four winning wi-fi upgrades mr mountain provided uh updated the committee about the coming switch in win wide area network providers optimum light path has recently won the clip the bid for clifton via the federal e-rate process and we'll be building out connectivity to all of our buildings clifton it will move to the new system once it's complete and fully tested to everyone's satisfaction long-term cost savings are minimal but long-term reliability and cost savings in the future budget years will remain more significant any questions on technology seeing none facilities mr awad facilities meeting met on april 26 2022 i was president okay we'll just uh mr daley was president mr abu drabo president smith dr robertosi mr gianguero uchi shahada maldon oh marcion kuslevich mr watkins costello and cro uh meeting started at 2 p.m ended around 4 p.m items that were discussed was the referendum update mr marcion has been meeting with epic and o'hara to lay out scope of work and uh phasing for the suburb the first bid will be going out soon awaiting the state comptroller to approve bid before it can be advertised the second item discussed was tennis court and marching band renovation a bid came under budget budget was a million and the bid came at 1.95 million uh third item discussed vacant buildings for rent and sale vacant buildings were discussed as a rental for the upcoming school year and beyond committee agreed to uh to begin negotiations for the vacant school buildings a fourth item was school 14 paving school 14 is in need of extra parking spaces teachers parking on the streets street is narrow and if one accident occurs it derails the whole school day arrival and dismissal the district architects are developing a planned budget for the community to consider another item discussed with school six parking maintenance team will park in the stadium once the paving project is complete to give the administration building more spots for the staff awaiting asphalt company to have the material dependent on the weather update on which employees use time clocks only maintenance and custodians use the time machine other departments have other methods of tracking time this was addressed and settled in uh mediation which vehicles have a gps and who monitors and how often all district vehicles have gps and are monitored when an incident report is reported director of buildings and grounds has access to the maintenance vehicles and the supervisor of transportation has access to the buses in the vans bus depot update the administration is looking for a permanent or satellite bus depot to house the buses uh ninth item was discussed was facilities budget facilities budget is the same as 21 22 school year with inflation increases obviously scratch that one finally was landscaping for ccms uh director of the buildings and grounds contracted with a company to put down the safe organic pesticides down to maintain the softball fields next meeting was also discussed to be held on may 10th which is in a couple days thank you any questions seeing non-education special education mr paris the education and special education committee uh met on april 21st at 3 p.m president were dr danny chairperson uh myself dr robert tosi uh miss kusalevich mr jingaro uh ms rotolo ms turi and uh a guest uh miss ragosa comprehensive health and physical education standards were discussed by ms kusalevich and mrs turi they gave a comprehensive update of the new comprehensive health and physical education standards describing the specific additions to the 2021 standards many of the changes from the 2014 standards were items already taught as a result of state legislative legislative mandates such as contribution of lb lgbtq plus and persons with disabilities the lessons that have been shared at boe meetings by concerned citizens or from an organization called advocacy advocacy for kids these lessons are not mandated nor promoted by the new jersey department of education and will not be utilized in clifton our own teachers will be creating the curricular lessons taught the new standards and locally developed lessons will be rolled out in an age and developmentally appropriate manner parent information sessions will be held on may 19th for k to 5 and may 24th for 6 to 12. links will be shared with the community health and physical education staff are receiving training in june and throughout the summer to support this initiative uh special education update from ms rotolo indicated that the last s-e-p-a-g meeting was held on 4-6-222 with span and a workshop empowering facilities scpag is always looking for new parent members so please reach out if you're interested in joining she shared that ongoing training for different schools continues to be conducted with our resident nurtured heart trainer miss linda chavez ms rotolo reported that there is a poac walk on june 12th this year please come out to support our students and staff we're currently working on implementing enhanced goals and objectives and progress reporting training will be offered to teachers during the summer the summer programs such as extended school year and covid learning support will run at schools 14 and 16 this summer we are still in need of paraprofessionals and teachers if anyone is interested ms rotolo reported on class sizes and budget requests she also shared that the district has applied for the innovations and special education award and is waiting to hear back from the new jersey school board association soon uh pb sis climate survey district-wide uh via miss kusalevich and mrs ragosa they shared information about a pbsis climate survey which will be shared with staff students and families this spring the survey collects opinion data to gauge people's perceptions about district programs and then summer programs mrs kuslev shared that many programs will be available for clifton students this summer using both e-s-e-a title and esther funds among programs offered are k-5 title one and title three programs at schools twelve and seventeen summer academic students supported school two middle school academy and six to twelve ell programs at ccms esy and cls at schools 14 and 16.
paid programs include the northern regional commission credit recovery summer school and the iswe program both held at woodrow wilson preschool expansion ms kusalevich updated the committee about preschool expansion state peg funds require that the district continue to add classrooms to meet the full universe of three and four-year-old students since our schools are at capacity the district is exploring using peg funds to lease another site st john canty is one site under consideration contracts with local service providers that meet state criteria are also being evaluated over the next several years at least 30 more classrooms will be needed to fulfill all preschool needs calendar focus group ms kusalevich in response to community requests the committee discussed creating a calendar focus group under the guidance of dr robert tosi a group made up of board members staff local community members including religious leaders will review religious and cultural holidays such as columbus day juneteenth and the date for eid among many others this group will make recommendations for prioritizing days off while still meeting the mandatory 180 days in school between september 1st and june 30th each year in school observations of holidays will also be discussed esther and ese a funded pilot of increased summer student contact rates uh was discussed by mrs kusalevich the contractual rate for summary teaching has remained the same for over 20 years due to the lack of staff available to teach and provide related services to students the district will pilot a temporary increase in the summer hourly rates for teachers and nursing staff working directly with children a resolution piloting this temporary increase for this summer only will be on the board's agenda recommending an increase to teachers and counselors working in summer school programs nurses in summer school and nurses for registration to be paid fifty dollars per hour power professionals twenty dollars an hour and administrators fifty five dollars per hour the program will be reevaluated at the end of the summer all other summer curricular professional development file and schedule revision work will remain at the contractal contractual rate of 35 dollars per hour meeting was adjourned at four o'clock respectfully submitted by miss kusalevich any questions uh just more informational president smith um in regards to calendar focus groups for aidel which is the celebration end of ramadan actually in the policy it says that um the advice from the islamic center for state county will be taken from them it's the last line of the policy that was made a couple years ago okay all right next we'll move on to public recognition everything that i read before for the budget public recognition is in effect you have five minutes if you please state your name and municipality and subject matter is there anyone in the we'll do the uh we'll do the tova left zoomers hungry there's no talking please across to the to the board yeah that's it's not appropriate at all excuse me excuse me that's unacceptable sir i have that you cannot have that in the room sir it is it is please it is very inappropriate absolutely excuse me sir sir excuse me if you cannot control yourself we're going to ask you to leave [Music] can we let them let's first this meeting is timed out and i have to restart the whole thing over with we got to re-evaluate this whole situation yeah without a doubt without a doubt good evening everybody mark prince yeah clifton new jersey i want to discuss tonight the the new eighth grade sex education standards and i want parents to understand that these standards are to be learned before end of the eighth grade that means they could appear anywhere before that grade and if everyone is focused over focused about what happens in the fifth grade and the second grade standards however the standards that are really inappropriate happen by the eighth grade which really means that your child can see this at any time in middle school i can tell you that many of the new standard the standards are inappropriate for likely 99 of kids that age moreover that these things that these are the things that shouldn't be in middle school at all the school is there to teach your kid the science of human reproduction now tips and tricks on how to get off and when to decide to have sex if you want your kid to decide these things in a public forum like a classroom then knock yourself out however i don't think any of this should be in group lessons without a permission slip to opt in there's a short list of what i believe to be inappropriate for middle school this is verbatim from the education standards define define vaginal anal and oral sex describe pregnancy testing the signs of pregnancy and pregnancy options including parenting abortion and adoption identify prenatal practices that support a healthy pregnancy and identify where to find medically accurate source of information about prenatal care identify resources to assist with parenting analyze the similarities and differences between friendships romantic relationships and sexual relationships aka booty calls identify factors that are important in deciding whether and whether and when to engage in sexual behaviors identify factors that can affect the ability to give or perceive consent to sexual activity and this is first 8th 7th and 6th graders sex trafficking discussion with with with the middle schoolers it seems over the top inappropriate you throw all the info on them about the about vaginal anal oral sex and all kinds of stds now you want to burden them with human trafficking and child porn schools even go as far as discussing sexual consent law with sixth graders which seems all kinds of inappropriate the standards and lessons even go into family planning which seems seriously out outside the scope of what's to be learned in sixth grade i urge parents to familiar self so familiar so to familiar familiarize yourself with the standards and uh continuously ask the board of ed on how they will delive how they will deliver these materials to the students in your community and even this week some of the extremists at the new jersey department of education have refused to ask the state board of education to actually review the 2020 sex education standards as directed by governor phil murphy this was just a couple of days ago that's so far as i'm aware of and i just want to commend mr abu drabble and mr awad what they said earlier about the second grade standards that is the norm that is a norm for a lot of parents feel like that so thank you for that and to the to the commissioners i urge you to draft and issue a resolution announcing these extremists and and wholly inappropriate education standards and request the removal and notify our state legislator later governor murphy's office and the new jersey department of education thank you all for your time and god bless america have a good night everybody uh al dubois clifton so it seemed a few minutes ago maybe i got a a little out of line so i apologize if i offended anyone um however if you're sitting out here and it's not the first meeting that i've come to which i don't really want to come to meetings but you have dialogue that should be discussed uh in other areas not in front of us with items that what i just seen use approve about a budget when you come and you're going to vote on a budget and then you're just throwing numbers out four percent two percent three percent how many hirings that seems to be pathetic and i don't mean no disrespect but it's i don't know how it goes like that but it seems like a lot of your meetings are run like that and it's it's sad um so what i'm presenting tonight which is follow-up of what mark here said which he says pretty much a lot of the facts that are out there um you know it's like i have a little hope in anything because you don't get resp although i have to say mr smith you did send me your response back and i do appreciate that so i do apologize to you for that i was i'm tired and i was grateful for your response back so thank you just on another note today is a national day of prayer so on this day president biden puts out a proclamation for national day of prayer and he recognizes the healing power of prayer throughout history prayer has been an anchor for countless americans searching for strength and wisdom in times of struggling and sharing hope and gratitude in seasons of joy in public reflection reflections on life's many blessings and in a quiet moments during life's most difficult trials americans of nearly every background of fate have turned to prayer for comfort and inspiration prayer is a sacred right protected by free speech and religious liberty enshrined in our constitution and it continues to lift our spirits as we navigate the challenges of our time and he puts out a proclamation this day today he calls upon the citizens of our nation to give thanks in accordance with their own fates and consciences for our many freedoms and blessings and invites all in people of faith to join me in asking him for god's continued guidance mercy and protection in the year of our lord 2022.
so biden's proclamation talks about the importance of prayer he mentions god and he mentions the year of our lord what i've noticed in the school and all this sex education stuff there's no mention of god no mention of family life no mention of different roles they're trying to indoctrinate and groom children that's why they want to put them all together male and female to not acknowledge that a man is a man and a woman's a woman period there's talk about gender hormones gender dysphoria is something we keep building on and to keep saying well we had these standards five years ago 10 years ago it's it's out of control now it's way out of control and we're not reflecting on god we're not reflecting the year of our lord which president biden's mentioning here we're not reflecting that a woman a man can't have a child a man can breastfeed a child and a man is not a mother only a woman could be a mother and you know they could do their hormones or whatever they want to do but it's it's not there no matter how much they try to destroy now maybe someday they will i don't know but as of right now but by indoctrinating our children to not know the role of a man and woman and whether they're confused and they got to find themselves someday and who's the trusted adult or not is getting into areas that's really dangerous and i you know their presentation was fine i know it's difficult but somewhere we need board members to take action and just say you've gone too far and we have to be extremely prudent i don't understand why sex education standards can't be given to a parent and they sign off on it whatever grade you want them to saying yes i taught and checked off check off i taught them this i taught them that i refused to teach this and there'd be a check off and now you'd have the documentation and if a parent was confused in the topic request to have a a group gathering maybe in the auditorium if you had enough people to say okay come on in we're going to do it all together well now you got the parents there watching because the things you're you're indoctrinating them with is very dangerous things and it's gone beyond the years ago and maybe we were negligent maybe you know an error came in that we just ignored it ignored it ignored it but now it's hitting to the point where it's beyond control so um i ask you to consider the day of prayer you might even want to consider having some kind of chaplain on staff when i went to college can you give me when i went to college there was a chaplain priest in uh suny university in new york who was there to help people and you can have it from different faiths but at least there would be some kind of guidance based on the ten commandments thank you thank you mr smith i apologize and any of the board members i offend that i apologize thank you for your apology marsha miller clifton we are the parents the caregivers the taxpayers and we no longer allow you to divide us by race and to undo what martin luther king jr stood for when he prayed that we would one day be judged on the content of our character rather than the color of our skin these are our children and we pay you to create a safe healthy learning environment where teachers can academically equip and prepare their fragile and impressionable minds so that they may grow to contribute both individually and as a whole in society conversely it is our job to raise them with the american family values that we know and love kindness respect honesty and generosity to all people regardless of race and gender moreover we will no longer allow educators to push vulgar explicit and highly developmentally inappropriate sexual agenda that exploits our children these updated sex ed guidelines are nothing short of an over attempt to hyper sexualize our youth grooming them and making them increasingly susceptible to sex trafficking child pornography and innumerable other disturbing psychological issues that are now rife in society as a direct result of these damaging influences we will furthermore hold accountable these principles teachers and counselors that choose to project their personal beliefs and political opinions into the classroom either directly or indirectly we now i'm sorry we are not asking you to stop this freight train we are demanding that you turn it around today not tomorrow not six months from now but today we have been asleep at the wheel for far too long but rest assured we are now wide awake and you will no longer hold captive the minds of our precious children henceforth our schools will no longer be a breeding ground for hatred masked by politically correct buzzwords like equity inclusion and diversity it's game over the indoctrination must stop now i have a few questions one what materials are being used to teach the mandated abstinence sex education number two it's a three-parter what books are in the school libraries what books are being used by the students regarding crt and sex education and what books are being ordered for the new sex ed standards and number three what is your policy for transgender students are parents informed when the child identifies as the opposite sex i will leave you with a personal story over 25 years ago it was identified that pornographic books were in the clifton children library i was part of a group of clifton residents that opposed the books and brought it to the town council's attention they took our request under advisement and agreed to remove the books out of the children's library even under the threat of the aclu won then and we will again win to protect the betterment of our children thank you anyone else wish to address the board cnn emotionally closed such and closed mr robert was sent by mr uh somebody else uh yeah please mr awad i don't think there's anyone else in here portova we may have to call her yeah i don't think there's anybody else on that case close the zoomers second okay uh commissioner comments uh today good question i wanted to get out of here oh wait a minute hold on hold on oh that's me said one participant it was me it was me that's all you you can't speak anymore yeah can i can't i adjust it a little bit you need to let the agenda all right since i can't switch over those unfinished business we have none [Music] expression for those we did we do that one already no next question yeah expression of condolence number 17 uh miss password do you mind reading that whereas may 1st 2022 the community noted with sorrow the passing of susan honaki and whereas miss honaki has served the board of education and the children of clifton faithfully conscientiously as a resp highly respected bus aide for 14 years now therefore be it resolved that this resolution be forwarded to her bereaved family to serve as an expression of the great regard in which miss honaki was held by the board of education the administration employees and the pupils of the clifton public schools and be it further resolved that the content of this resolution be noted in its entirety in the official minutes of the clipton board of education for future generations to peruse dated may 5 2022 mr awad miss bassford yes ms meltron yes mr canova yes mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes um i'm sorry uh that our teachers are gone for the next one but we have a motion on um ea ii teacher appreciation week motion something by mr abhijava second by mr awad uh anyone mr kanoa mr beltran would you like to read that anybody turnover uh whereas teachers mold the citizens through guidance and education and whereas teachers encounter students in widely different differentiating background rounds and this popped up and whereas our country's future depends on providing quality education to all students and whereas teachers spend countless hours preparing lessons evaluating progress counseling and coaching students and performing community service and whereas our community recognizes and supports its teachers in educating the children of this community now therefore it be resolved that the clinton board of education claims may 2nd 22 to be a teacher appreciation week and be it further resolved at the clifton board of edge strongly encourages all members of our community to join with it personally expressing appreciation for our teachers and for what they do in dedication and devotion to the to their work a motion by mr canova second second mr alberta yes president smith yes next ea uh mr oberdrama would you like to read for the nurses thank you president smith national school nurse day whereas students are the future and by by investing them today we're ensuring our world for tomorrow and whereas families deserve to feel confident that their children will be cared for when they are at school and whereas all students have the right have a right to have their physical and mental health needs safely met while in the school setting and whereas students today face more complex and life-threatening health problems requiring care in school and whereas the kova 19 pandemic has emphasized the essential role school nurses play in student health and academic success and whereas school nurses have served a critical role in improving public health and ensuring students academic success for more than 100 years and whereas school nurses address the home and community factors that impact students health and where our school nurses act as a liaison to school community families and health care providers on behalf of children's health by promoting wellness and improving health outcomes for our nation's children and whereas school nurses support the health and educational success of children and youth by providing access to care when children's cognitive development is at its peak and where our school nurses are members of the school-based teams to address the school population and where school nurses undertake understand the link between health and learning and are in a position to make positive difference for each for children every day therefore be it resolved that the national association of school nurses celebrates and acknowledges the accomplishments of school nurses everywhere and their efforts of meeting the needs of today's students by improving the delivery of healthcare in our schools and offers gratitude for the nation's school nurses and who contribute to our local communities by helping students stay healthy in school and ready to learn and keep keeping parents and guardians at work not just on this national school nurse day but every opportunity throughout the year now therefore i phil murphy governor new jersey do hereby proclaim wednesday may 11th as school nurse day in new jersey and commend its objective observances second by mr paris discussion seeing non-roll call yes yes mr have a job mr awad miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canova mr paris yes vice president daley yes president smith yes what carries if we could have uh the rest of the group that's ea4 through ea-12 motioned by mr abu drabble second by mr awad discussion i have won ea uh seven the policy number zero one five five was i asked at the last meeting to pull it until we got an advisory opinion from the school ethics commission i did we get an advisory opinion back from them about having non-lay people on committees no i don't have anything where is it okay so i'm asking for that to be pulled until we get a decision sorry what item number seven but i want to pull just yeah i had to ask last meeting for that to be pulled until we got a decision yeah miss uh uh guterres you weren't here last meeting so uh we asked you to get a uh a decision from uh we were billed for it on on the um on the claims list so so i guess there's work being done on it the advisory opinion me a yes all right so we're going to we don't have anything back yet okay enough so we're going to pull it for that okay all right so the the rest of the group so zero five is being pulled right correct no just just guess about number seven the one policy i'm sorry roll call please mr abbado mr awad miss passport yes with pulling that one for policy thank you it's beltran yes mr conovo yes mr paris uh yes abstain on item eight mr uh vice president daley yes president smith yes motion's carrick all right next we have uh p1 motion through p50 second motion by mr aberdrabble second by mr awad discussion seeing none roll call yes mr abdrabbo mr awad yes but i'm abstaining on p47 and 49.
miss bassford yes p-47 my name only miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr paris uh yes abstain on uh c15 and 47 my name only vice president daley yes and president smith yes emotions carry all right next we have f1 through f10 motion by mr adrava second by mr awad discussion uh yes i have something for discussion yes um so be on the claims list on the um the agl uh bill um on if everyone wants to open it up um there's a question here that we paid for it says research read board members simultaneous candidacy for re-election and city council i was wondering where that question originated who is the one on the board who asked it and why it was asked because that to me it seems to be a personal question not one that would have any relation to the running of the board got it um yes i don't remember specifically who asked me but it would have had to have been either the board president or the superintendent of schools one of the two would there be some sort of um email records of that or something because this is very much a personal question that's being used that uh school funds are being used to answer i don't know that it's important it's i mean because what i just want to know that it's a person someone running for their in office of like affect the board in any way no i think uh where this came from and and mr abu drabba mr casper had reported back to us that a new law had been put into place that you can't run for another position while you hold the position we investigated and found that to be incorrect so we were getting we asked to get clarification on that yeah because this actually says simultaneous candidacy for re-election and city council which there's only three of us that would be eligible up to ask that question right and it wasn't any of us who asked it so i'm just trying to figure out who asked this because it was an expensive question it was a 500 question the note has to be adjusted it wasn't simultaneously was it the note that has to be adjusted or was the question was that the actual question that was asked and it was asked for somebody who's not currently sitting on the board i don't know my recollection is not that it was asked about somebody that was not sitting on the board the question was the question was more of a gen if i recall correctly because it was a while ago now was whether or not somebody could be could be sitting on the board and also run for an elected office at the same time exactly that's always been done because you'd be running for re-election always no running for an elected office not on the board but that's always been done pino for an example okay i got that i know you just mentioned someone's name who's running the rumors is running for two offices you mentioned casper i didn't mention osprey what does that have to do with anything because i'm wondering if you used our legal funds to ask questions so if you have that information then come forward that's absolutely ridiculous well i'm going to open a question don't worry add a board may you can open whatever you want we're going to a board member who was representing this board at county school boards came back and reported to us if you were paying attention he wasn't on the board in march he i don't care when he that's when the question came up because he reported back that you did that it was a new law that you couldn't be on both but how did he report bargain march dnf i may about a year and a half ago he did come back from school boards or from i think was a county or something and he stated in one of his committee reports and we can go back and look at the committee reports where he said that i guess it was a legislator or somebody at that point said you cannot run for office while no you have to leave the board at a certain time for another office which was absolutely wrong so i that was that's what i think the inquiry was about to see if mr casper actually reported it wrong or at the time when he was a board member and i think that's when the question came about in march because there's also another question on the bill uh it seems like the next day possibly a follow-up question that says consider issues related to board member council conflict so it seems like there's two separate questions that were asked one being that question and then one being if you can run for both at the same time no it wasn't two separate questions it was the same question it just so happens to be that we had we considered the issues two separate two of us were talked about it two of us looked into it it's not that it was two separate days or two separate questions but you think this this this line item is appropriate for the board to pay for because it has nothing to do with the running of the school district that's why i'm trying to understand it seems like a person who wants to run should ask their own election attorney or ask the county not so much our board using our funds okay i get that i understand that that's your position what all i'm saying is that it's something that would affect a member of the board of a city member of the board and that's why the question was asked of me i have a question if there's an issue i have a question um a while back i had asked for permission to speak to the attorney now see this is bringing up a lot of different issues if a question like this why doesn't the questions go in an email so there is an actual paper trail of where they're coming from because there's a lot of there's a lot of conference questions on here from the board attorney to the president and the vice president now what if i wanted to find out what you talked about because i'm allowed to because you're giving business you're using our taxpayer dollars to give uh is this nothing to do with miss gutierrez this has to do with the process right if i want to find out what the question was because i had i had my i'm on here there's a bunch of people on here it's just odd to me that there is no initials put there i'd like to know who asked that question as well so where i i asked mr usee today where is the log that we're supposed to have when somebody accesses the um board attorney and there is no log i'm being told that the bills are the log now we had a really big discussion a couple months ago about a log and all these things so i'm i'm gonna ask if anybody poses a question why isn't in writing so i always send it to you in writing because i want to have i want to form a paper trail but why isn't in writing because now there's a question from miss beltran about this and she she has some valid points is why is this being discussed because i actually went to somebody that actually ran for two boards and got his the legal opinion he was given by his board attorney and it's jeff fisher from north halden imagine manchester regional and the answer is that somebody can't run for two boards sign of two positions simultaneously because when they sign the oath at the end of the petition they are stating that they are qualified to hold office when they sign the second oath for another elected position they are not being truthful since they can't hold any two elected positions simultaneously um that he said to me in like two minutes but that was an opinion he got because he he got thrown off on one board uh he used to be president of school boards association he's also a current board member for 40 years in held and if you want to look him up he was at the county meeting on monday i asked him after i saw this and um he gave me that answer my question is why don't we have a paper trail about what the questions are asked because if we want to know what is discussed legally we should be allowed to find out what the what's going on other boards discuss with their their colleagues what's discussed and what's going on and what they find out legally i have to tell you tonight with the finance and with the budget and i said to the business administrator if i would have this is unclear but if i would have only stayed on the claims list please okay we're not getting the information we need to get and that's why i want to go to the committee okay so so just so that we're clear so that we're clear on the bill if i put uh i i i'm very i do my very best to make sure that if i am speaking to a someone other than the superintendent the business and minister well i write down when i talk to the superintendent or the business administrator or the board president but if i'm speaking to any any board member other than that i will put the name of the person and i'll put you know per the board president because board members are not supposed to be calling me without permission from the board president as to everything being put in email very often it's it's a phone call it's not an email so you know that's that's just the way it is with respect to so if if i don't put down who asked the question it's because it came from either the superintendent's office or from the bus for the business administrator or the board president not from anyone else so just to answer your question i did not do legal research on behalf of or for any former board member i don't think you did on purpose but possibly the question might have come from outside that i wouldn't and then was forwarded to you just that's what i'm just trying to investigate because there isn't of the three people that are up for re-election it didn't come from us okay so it's just a little bit strange that this question would come up about running for re-election and city council when there's only three seats that could have possibly had that problem one two and three and all three of us say that it isn't our question so i'm just trying to get to it who asked this question because obviously it was a pretty intense question it was a three three hour and ten minute question so i don't know if there was a report written that was given to the board or anything i believe i wrote something i wrote a letter okay yeah because it wasn't sent to everyone else so we're just i'm personally trying to get to the bottom of who asked for this because you said if you didn't say it but did the administration ask for this did not so that's what we're trying to figure out where this question originated they're saying it's from possibly from when mr casper was on the board but that was three months before this question was asked so i'm just you know i don't know if anyone else has any comments yeah what does it make sense to me is if the question isn't relevant to the times why are we even asking it and spending money to an attorney to ask the question all right if somebody's not a sitting member on a board why would he ever have to know whether or not he could run this had nothing this if i recall correctly it was not this had nothing to do with mr casper okay so that's not what it was told to me so let's say it didn't let's say didn't none of us are in that situation so so why would we spend money to find out an answer to a question that is useless to us to know the information for okay that's not a question for me to answer i don't know then who asked the question that's the i think that's the question is who asked the question the board president asked me to research this and i did okay so so mr smith can you speak to why we asked that question being that it doesn't affect anyone yeah it it did affect somebody that's all i'm going to leave it at you cannot just leave it like that yeah i don't think there's a clue we're nine members why wouldn't we know the situation if we don't need to go to executive to speak and i'm fine with that was a board member asked to speak to the attorney about that issue a sitting board member on this board then it's not listed there so so and you know who that board member person's not being is then why am i being listed i don't remember if i spoke to you i don't remember who i saw you can't have two rules it's either got to be everybody gets listed or nobody gets listed and i think it's fair for everybody on this board that has to approve this bill as a collective whole to know who's asking questions because then this is how we judge to see if somebody's accessing the attorney i don't remember i don't i don't recall speaking to someone so if i speak to somebody i put it on the bill so then she come off the bill because we have no idea who this was requested by if it was even requested by us we have no proof of anything for this for this question i understand you you did the work but it didn't come from the board as far as we're concerned because no one's fessing up to being the question asking mr smith just finished saying he's the one that asked me the question he just finished saying that it was a request of someone else who's on the board if it's going to be an issue we can take it off the bill i'm not going to i'm not going to quibble over three hours we're going to have a good relationship with his name and then we'll submit it next meeting okay what are we doing we're asking a valid question we're asking who did who author you authorized it so who contacted you uh it's a valid question to tax if we're spending taxpayer money again the taxpayers if we're questioning this where are the stewards of the taxpayer dollars we have a fiduciary obligation to make sure that every dollar is spent appropriately what is the problem with knowing who you you mentioned mr casper that's off the table so who's just we just want to know who it is and why is it all in in march because to me it's unethical and it's it's it's very violationable period i i really beg to differ i i have not done anything no no not you no not you i'm saying that my question so listen i it is 11 42 p.m and you guys are tired and you have a you know i'm not i'm not i'm not suggesting that you stop it what i'm saying is i can review the bill and remove that piece and then we can move on or review it and get back to us with who you spoke to i think it should be removed because we're covering something up if he doesn't haven't she doesn't have an answer for you okay you know what maybe i can call the office of compliance and let them look into it she just told you she doesn't know from her notes of who she spoke to what you do is what i don't understand i authorize the person to contact them not what the what the content of the discussion was you call me numerous times you want to speak to the attorney and i authorize it i back it up with an email all the time in writing so i have a paper trail the lease even knows i even back up the question in an email i am very very methodical about that because in case any one of my colleagues want to ask what i'm looking into they can say to me where it is and i send them the email you're supposed to know this we have the right to ask the question on who is this about because it like missed beltran said there's three people running mr daly miss beltran their positions are up this election cycle so who asked the question because it's it's starting to get really ugly and i'm starting to get really concerned that something appropriate went on yeah so what i'll i'll go back and i'll that's the same i'll go back and i'll look at my records so can we pull this for executive then is that what we need to do i mean what i'm saying is i don't have access this is the one that that i approved so she has to find out who well you could tell us an executive who you proved okay next she has this item because it's nothing to do with it's not i will review my records she will review her records and see who she spoke to there's nothing pertaining to a legal matter it's not employment or a legal matter i will review my records and then i'll get back to you she's on this she's pulling that bill till she can review her records and she will get back to us and who she's supposed to every one of these other ones has who she spoke to also while you're at a poll the one i guess says consider issue related to board member and council conflict does that have a name next to it i'll look at all of it no that one doesn't either and then um i have another question about this um all right so let's just make sure which ones we're pulling okay the one above it it said uh review legal issues related to board policies and board member qualification if we could just get um more like details about what board member qualifications were being investigated okay so those three yeah i have no idea who those are all right roll call on the wrist mr abedrabo yes obtaining an f10 yes i'm gonna abstain at 10 because all this i don't know what's going on miss password yes and i'm abstaining on 10 as well why are you just you're obtaining your higher list of bills by the way on the check yeah yeah yeah and uh yeah so i was standing on just what caused the camera sorry the agl invoice for me because my name's listed okay same with me i'm just upstanding i'm the ones that were just watching yes thank you for the clarification because you don't want to stand on the whole claims list miss beltran yes i'm standing on agl's uh checks in the claims as well as the egl uh invoice mr canova yes with the partial uh abstention mr paris yes with samus vice president daley yes president smith yes motion carries except for the ag elbow yes the agl bill on the claims list on that yes all right next we have board member comments let's see which and mr parish you're up first oh yeah it's late and um i don't know who's watching anyway at this point so uh happy teacher appreciation week and um get your car washed by the band on saturday uh next we have uh mr abu drabo uh let me develop on that really quick ban car wash every saturday may 7 14 21 and 28 from 8 30 to noon beef steak fundraisers coming up football baseball and band thank you to all our teachers all our nurses and congrats to all ca excellence in education legislative meeting may 24th at 10 a.m and policy meeting may 9th standing meeting at 3 p.m send me any information you guys have and also congrats to ramana about being the boys and girls club member of the year uh mr wade you're next no comments tonight miss belcher on your next i would just like to um wish all the teachers a good teacher appreciation week as well as the nurses um we do appreciate everything that you uh you've done and i hope that in the future when we come to the budget discussions that all the comments that were made tonight come in emails earlier in the budget process so that maybe we can try and you know we can try and consider them earlier in the process and make it a little bit smoother for everybody including the administration that's all i'd say uh thank you um thank you to miss hoholic for um your bravery and your expertise in first aid happy teachers appreciation week happy nurses uh week to all the nurses out there thank you for what you do and happy mother's day to all the moms in the district the state new jersey the country in the world thank you uh mr uh canova yes thank you to miss hoholic for uh saving a student's life um that's something that you know you live with forever knowing that uh that student's alive because of you um and and in my hours you're a hero for that um thank you to our to our teachers to our nurses uh happy appreciation week for for both of you um and i'll just keep my comments short and ended at that thank you vice president daley uh noting the hour i have no comments um we i have no comments we have uh nothing for executive so motion to adjourn no we have new business we have new business oh i'm sorry geez trying to get i thought we had something for executive no no what are you doing what are you doing oh um we can do it next time if it's not presented yes i was told there was no stop pressing from our side if it's if it's pressing information you want there was a facilities issue with some legal bills it's not pressing from our side if you could if you could wait till the 19th it's okay with us mr shahada you have the information if we need it mr shahada has the information if we want to go on to executives i was just told there was nothing for you thank you just two minutes ago i just asked i didn't have anything for personnel and i asked mike there's nothing so there's nothing for executives i got two mothers three mothers [Music] i have one item for my business oh that's the pads he said he can wait till the next meeting absolutely can wait i mean that's all yeah we did have something but wait um [Music] you want to go to executive session for it i i that's why i asked before yes because i just so under new business all right so we'll move on exactly where you passed we're going to new business new business i have a yes mr canola i have a motion that i would like to go to four percent not two percent i don't want to leave money on the table knowing that we're below the bell curve of average in the uh in the state for the amount of associates we have what's the motion i want to go to four percent not two percent it's not even discussed it's not a new item no it's already it's that would be the new item smith i think procedurally you'd have to res because you can't amend an action you already took on during the same meeting so you'd at worst you'd have to rescind the other i don't even think you could do that no it's not it's not a new item it's already been discussed about i ran into that they did it in the city of newark once was out well you can certainly have a short discussion here and look around and all right so quick stroke who would be for going for four percent so we don't leave the other two percent on the table i would i i think there's a legality issue to uh need a two-thirds vote to actually put it on exactly um can i suspend the bylaws oh my gosh i just want to know if is there for even five does this even matter to extend the meeting at twelve seven minutes does this matter all right knowing that we're below the bill do i have do i have five did it even care so there is a uh a motion on the floor to present new business that was not uh previously done so a two-thirds majority would allow that to happen so uh roll call and allowing the motion under new business so two-thirds of 18.
there's only eight people here there's nine okay okay all right so you need six votes uh to uh redo this roll call please this is just to allow the new business okay if he doesn't have six then it doesn't even go to new business to allow two-thirds majority to allow this new business mr abedraba no mr awad no miss bassford yes miss beltran yes mr canola yes mr paris no because he already decided it vice president daley no sorry president samantha no motion fails all right motion to adjourn mr 27 million dollars
[Applause] hi i'm marlo and i'm wiley and you're watching tv news it's may guys aka national barbecue month national hamburger month national salsa month and national strawberry month that's a lot of national foods for one country i think we could make a pretty epic international picnic with all that grub a celebratory picnic for national military appreciation month maybe a great idea but we got news to film before we can snack that's true well we better get started and what's better than to start off with tinkercon we actually got some pretty great footage and a couple interviews from this year's epic stem event hi i'm marlo brown from cad tv news and here we're at tinkercon i think this is one of my favorite events of the year to see the creativity the ingenuity of our students and also to see how a lot of them are taking things that they're learning specifically from their ctes and applying it to what they're doing here it's just a fun event and it's great to see everybody in here using their skills to create wonderful things [Music] and here we're at the drone popping section of tinkercon i'm here with david someone who worked on it david what is the drone popping section like what is this the idea behind it is essentially kind of like almost like a relay race um the drones got to pop the balloons faster than everyone else better pop them better not stop them don't stab your friends they are sharp and dangerous so what's pop and gamer hopefully not my skull but balloons mostly we attached shanks to the sides of drones and saw what happened and it honestly surprisingly worked out as like a functioning game i didn't expect it to work i just like the idea of putting sharp objects onto the end of a flying drone now there's a lot of things i want to ask but the first thing is why why is there confetti in the balloons is it like a prize i'm gonna be completely honest with you that was mostly improvised because we ran out of white balloons they were supposed to be white balloons and gold balloons we ran out of the white ones all that was left were the ones fill of confetti so how did this come to be why are you doing this the original idea was to put balloons on the tops of the drones so that they would kill each other and like attack each other's balloons but it broke the drones and they wouldn't work so we went for a different idea in which you kind of have a little bit of a a drone relay if you will a bit of a [Music] you know what i'm saying nope i'm so i can give you an answer on the bucket brigade um it is a relay race for the drones for the two players with the drones to work together and get the balls into the ball goal and the purple vex rings into the ring goal and then after the goals are filled with the correct objects they get pushed up the ramp thank you so much of course well i mean david left and the woman in stem is now sitting as a woman in stem she needs to rest [Music] i'm a woman in stem hi i'm a woman in stamp this is stem and i am a woman i'm mr patterson and i support women in stem we love women in stem [Music] back to you guys at the studio great interviews and such a fun event can't wait for next year although we support women in stem all year round by the way a new club is emerging it's a place of improvement and growth the literature club it meets tuesday in room 155 all are welcome just in case anyone's forgotten yearbooks are still for sale all of your school memories and all of our beautiful faces are plastered in a book that you can buy for just 85 be quick though orders are due may 10th via miss sikes let's all give a big thanks to the yearbook club and everyone in graphic arts for the amazing photography and editing the annual strawberry festival of west cape may is coming up we need help preparing and selling goods so if you're interested please contact mr wanker it'll be a very fun event with shortcake sales basket raffles and more before we continue any further let's all give a big thanks and a big goodbye to peer leadership their last meeting is today and we want to give a shout out to everyone involved great work guys can't wait to see what you'll do next year sophomores juniors and seniors will be called to their class meetings around 8 30 am as usual if you like music can play an instrument want to learn or just want to jam out gm sessions after school are the way to go we went to audio production to learn more about their funky fresh club what's up everyone i'm mr tar from the guidance office we're here in entertainment productions i'm going to tell you why i'm holding this jam session was a thing that we did it went away for a little bit it's back and it's rejuvenated i've been playing music for 20 years i'm a drummer i play some keyboard whatever i play i've played a lot of things over the years so now i want to show you how to play things we got it all we got bongos and this this after school activity is also going to be about talking to each other about bands that you like share music learn music so if you haven't heard about santana it's a group that uses a lot of percussion stuff like this claves these are called wood blocks for some reason they're not made out of wood it sounds like a cowbell a little bit then we've got drums been doing this forever [Music] [Applause] [Music] you can play ukulele you can play just check it out come check it out we got piano [Music] you get the idea every tuesday after school room 119 come find out if you like instruments see you there congrats to our cmt students who competed in skills isabella schmucker got golden barbering cat tv news's very own nathaniel and noah wenker got golden digital cinematography production esteban benitez got golden hvac michael matalski got silver and hvac in jordan fashion mulligan and madeleine hague both got silver in audio production by the way agriculture is still selling plants in case it grows on you their sales extend until may 24th so make sure to get any plants that prickly your fancy hi i'm anna from cat tv news and i'm here with mr anderson from the ag cte we're here to talk about the spring plant sale basically the spring plant sale is now underway everything you see behind us is essentially for sale and it's open to students staff and the public all during school hours monday through friday eight till 2 30.
as well as we continue with the three-story building on all three floors uh phase one bm1 c can uh continue that's a performing arts in the art area and they'll be moving in june one and lm pool if you see that south side wall it's all brick right now so they're moving quite well on that despite the weather as well as the inside continues to move forward belzer and fall creek valley as you see the new boilers are in place and piping and electrical work continue at both building those boilers at fall creek are inside and being plumbed so any questions on the updates okay we'll move on then to curricular resource fees for the school year and that is mr streams madam vice president dr smith members of the board on the screen you can see the um proposed curricular resource fees for next year one thing to point out other than kindergarten they've all are lower that proposed rates are lower than they were this past year and that's due to the adoptions that we that you have approved in previous board meetings that allowed those prices to be lower for the coming year that one-to-one device is still fifty dollars a year that price did not change for the students and of course grades eight through twelve it all depends on what their class schedule is first or 7 through 12 what their class schedule is this is what their total fee would be good work mr shreves it's always nice during an inflationary period when prices can go down for our parents that's that'll be help actually i can't take credit for that curriculum department did in the adoption of the resources nicely done and the curriculum is better suited to our children as well very well any questions i just had one um thank you for that on the seventh and eighth grade feast do you know about what the range typically is i know it varies but is there a kind of a range the cost can be i don't know off top my head but we can find that out and let you know at the next meeting okay thank you very similar to the high school oh because the kids take more advanced level classes but these go up yes sir okay thank you all right on to mr notre and our student achievement update thank you madam vice president members of the board and dr smith i'm bringing to you a continuation of our series of reporting on our board goals related to student achievement and the one that i'll be addressing this evening is our goal around our rigor diagnostic score and so just as a reminder the goal that we set last july was a score of 9.0 on the scale or growth greater than 2.0 from the beginning baseline score at the beginning of the year to the end of your score and we just finished our rigor diagnostics last week at our high schools so as a reminder these are the the pillars of the rigor diagnostics so this is what it's measuring conditions for learning so that's the environment the culture the systems within the school that allow students to reach rigorous standards standards-based student evidence that's the work what are students working on what are they producing activating student teams to achieve the standard are students working independently are they working collaboratively are the tasks team worthy are they challenging enough the kids need each other in order to be able to solve the problem or meet the demands of the task verifying learning so are teachers monitoring are they verifying that students are achieving the standard and if not are they taking action within the lesson and then tracking student progress do we know where our kids are and each pillar is scored on a scale of 0 to 12.
so tell your friends tell your family to come on over and help support the program how much do the plants go for the hanging baskets that you see behind us are all ten dollars each and then most everything that's on the benches is two dollars each so pretty easy math and i think it's a pretty good price thank you i'm back to the studio man no i want some pretty plants i'm gonna have to go down there to buy some cross country is having a meeting monday may 16th after school in room 150 at 2 45 all current members and anyone interested in joining can pop in in other sports news the baseball team is doing really good this season the hawks have won five of their last seven and they have good amounts of home games coming up so come out and support the team for more baseball news you can follow cnt underscore baseball on instagram to keep up this week we asked kate may tech what their favorite animated characters were and i'm curious roll the clip your favorite animated character um jojo from jojo's bizarre adventure any one of them what's your favorite cartoon character my favorite animated character is the greedy from the 1977 film raggedy a daddy of musical adventure a film i highly recommend what's your favorite animated character butt head from beavis and butthead lelouch v brittania my favorite animated character is the first non-binary character i came across in cartoon children's representation named double trouble from netflix's reanimated shira show i like lil bill because that's my little homie you know that's my homie i gotta say peppa pig you know what is your favorite animated character uh my favorite animated character is probably guts from the series berserk my favorite animated character is probably lane from serial experiments lane um i think my favorite animated character is death the kid from soul eater my favorite animated character is garfield he's so me for real my favorite character is peter griffin family guy my favorite character is porcus c dace from one piece the animated show curious doors is your favorite animated character my favorite uh animated character is nesico from demon slayer what's your favorite animated character my favorite animated character is spongebob because he is funny and he is the best anime character of all time because um it was like the first cartoon i've ever watched and it's just a lot of fun great to know what is your favorite animated character my favorite animated character is probably patrick starr from spongebob because he's funny and he's dumb my favorite animated character is um spongebob um his laughing makes me really happy and it kind of makes me lose my brain cells and from the avatar my favorite animated character is mrs incredible my favorite animated character is mata uchiha from naruto my favorite animated character is stitch because he's really cute my favorite animated character is mr dunnen the final boss in the destroyer game i'm about to go with uh perry the platypus mine is uh timmy turner my homeboy blue the blue dog from blue's clues the animated series about the blue dog looking for clues the blue ones around the house of of uh the dog's owner the blue dog the blue dog named blue from blue's clues the animated tv series my favorite animated character is ike buflovsky from south park my favorite animated character is casually teto my favorite animated character is spongebob squarepants because he's funny my favorite court cartoon character goes back quite a few years it goes back to saturday morning uh sylvester the cat suffered and success and he used to look for petey the bird i thought i thought a pony cat i did i did um mine is stitch mickey mouse i would say goofy uh i'd say tweety bird i'd say fat gum from my hero well my favorite animated character of all time would have to be bugs bunny when i was a lad i would wake up on saturday mornings and there was the bugs bunny cartoons for like two hours and uh they were the best they don't make them like that anymore thank you definitely some hot takes i'd say hey wiley who's your favorite fictional character it'd have to be carl azuz my idol that wraps it up for this week i'm wiley and i'm marlo and you're watching cat tv news [Music] [Applause] [Music] you
just for for your reference these are the score ranges and kind of how to think about the score ranges when we have a score of 0 to 3.9 we know we've got a lot of work to do that we have the the absence of some systems within the school that will lead to increased student achievement the next layer a 4.0 to 6.9 we've got some instructional professional learning systems we need to further align and achieve more consistency in the third area 7.0 to 9.9 we've got strong systems alignment that confidently will result in increasing student achievement when you reach that 10.0 the marzano center considers you a national model school so for us this is the the report from from our schools at the the macro level at the district level i'm pleased to report that all of our schools did show growth from the beginning of the year but i'm even more pleased that we had three elementary schools that for the first time scored above a 9.0 within the district we've never had a school score that high um and this year we had three and i did want to publicly acknowledge those three by name crestview was our highest at 9.8 forest glen 9.7 and mary castle 9.3 then i broke down the growth and the average score for you within each of our age ranges so you can see our elc growth and their average score a growth of 1.0 and an average score of 7.1 elementaries a little more growth and a little higher average score 1.7 and 7.8 it's important to remember for our secondary schools that they're three years behind our elcs in our elementary so we do expect the same amount of growth from our secondaries but we're not surprised when their composite scores a little lower than our elementaries and elcs and then you can see the district average of growth of 1.5 and falling into that 7.3 range which that's really if you go back to the previous slide that's where it's indicating strong student achievement that we know we're getting our systems aligned that will result in increasing student achievement so we're pleased with with where we ended up next steps we always use this data to then identify trends within specific schools and across the district we want to celebrate and build on the growth it's been a challenging school year i'm in so many ways and this was a very very ambitious goal for our schools and so we do want to celebrate and build upon that growth that's specific to each school and we also at the same time want to develop an individualized school support plan there's some schools who need some additional support based on the data and we want to make sure that we're working with the building principle to provide that this data has also given us some direction around our ongoing district level professional development building level professional development particularly as it relates to new teachers one of the characteristics that we've seen is as we bring new teachers in we've got to get them onboarded quickly and so this data played that out as well and then also continuing to pilot our teacher evaluation model that aligns with the rigor diagnostics so that truly all of our systems are going in the same direction i'd be happy to answer any questions i don't have a question as it is a comment it was i was able to experience one of the rigor walks by accident it was on one of the days where i was helping in the classroom but one of the things that's fascinating is when you see the kids are so acclimated to the teachers and everyone else it's so natural so the kids are doing their own things so just to be able to observe the process of just the kids just being in their element but being able to also measure their academic success it was thanks for that it was pretty awesome absolutely yeah thank you absolutely so troy talk just a little bit about i mean obviously there's a lot of good news in that report the three schools above nine and the overall average of you know 7.1 and i understand the secondary schools you know still being in the progress yes i had to get with elementary uh but the one data point that was a little bit below you know kind of what our targets is the the 2.0 growth unless you're over the nine obviously they're you know within the 1.5 to 1.7 range so comment on that piece or what caused that to happen in your view we did have some schools that met the the 2.0 growth and it was highly ambitious schools that didn't an example might be schools that had significant turnover in teachers or schools that had significant high numbers of new teachers hence that bullet point of we really got to focus on our onboarding process for for new teachers um we had a couple schools where we had a principal turnover and so getting that traction going as a new principal um a couple of them were really celebrating the growth that they did have um considering that they took over in october or we had one new principal that started right before school started in august and so but each school tells a little bit different story and we do have three schools that are going to have an intensive support plan so that we can push them above that 2.0 for next year and then the intensive support plan does that start in the summer time getting ready for the start of school or talk a little bit about it actually starts with the last phase of the rigor diagnostic and so after all of the classrooms are walked then we sit down and really map out where the school is and the the pillars that i shared with you this evening and schools do a self-rating of where they think they are and what they want to work on and they come away with an action plan on that very day and so then begin driving towards that action plan working on it over the summer so an example would be our two middle schools are going to have leadership retreats this summer with their teacher leaders as they have had some turnover in teacher leadership and really building that shared vision to begin the school year with that vision and the actions in mind thanks i appreciate that question mr friedrich that was my question as well and i also appreciate you're giving us mr notre examples of what those pillars are that that helps me envision what what we're going for um and i assume some of the schools that had a lower uh rigger number had higher growth is that yes clear to assume in general some did um and then what really we've seen 1.7 with our secondary um so 1.7 is significant growth but it's an average for all of them and they typically have scored lower because they're further behind than the elementaries but we are getting good growth from most of our secondary schools when marzano comes in are they happy with the progress we're making do they think it's significant progress they've and this is anecdotal but they have never seen a school district move like this they've seen individual schools but to have three that are on the cusp of national models they don't have another district that's achieving as a system in that way that's great well thank you or you'll get your copy from mrs blankenship uh very soon it's hot off the press of the individual screws so it'll make a little bit more sense for you very good okay all right then we go to our board goals update good evening madam vice president dr smith members of the board in addition to the student achievement updates that mr notre has been bringing you the last few months as we go through the school year tonight we bring you a general update about all the board goals as we wrap up the school year we are approaching in the school year so some of these data points are pretty accurate but we've got about two weeks left so that they could be fine-tuned in the next couple weeks as we go through up first to discuss equity and anti-racism as well as student achievement is mr notre thank you mr kuznick and we are pleased with the historic approval that the board gave to our equity plan um our action plan that was developed throughout this entire school year was approved at your last meeting and so now the real heavy lifting comes and so we achieve this board goal and we'll be setting many more for the future in terms of student achievement our graduation rate is not finalized until october 1st however our prediction is and our leading data indicators indicate that we will be above the 93 percent board goal i learned we are in the middle of taking ilearn now um and so the nice thing about our new system for ilearn is that we get the student data back 12 days after they finish the test and so we will be able to have our testing data before jumpstart which will be very helpful for us so the the final numbers will be coming for for ilearn i've been updating you on the next one periodically throughout the the school year on our own benchmark assessments um and so we give those periodically throughout the year the the next year in one will come when we finish ilearn we'll we'll do a last illuminate fast bridge assessment and i'll be able to give you that final report and then i just shared with you where we are with our rigor diagnostic we take questions after each section or you want to wait to the entire end that's your call absolutely why don't we do questions with each category i think that's the easiest thing to do so um on the graduation rate talk a little bit more about what you're seeing with the honors diplomas and what we're looking to you know get to with that so highs and the lows yeah the the honors diploma is really our um main indicator for our equity work and so we will be monitoring that really closely you can see what our baseline data was last year we had some slippage with a couple of our demographic groups and we expect those to rebound we also are working with each of our high schools to ensure that strength of the diploma continues to increase that we are eliminating waivers as much as we possibly can eliminating general diplomas as much as we possibly can and pushing into core 40 and and honors diplomas okay any other questions on on student achievement okay we can go on madame vice president board members dr smith we'll next ask miss carla johnson to review our goals regarding people good afternoon school board members as we look at the human resources goals the first goal that we have is all employees will participate in district-wide equity and anti-racism professional development and through our online safe schools module we're at about a 94.5 completion rate i believe because we're constantly getting new staff but we're in the we're in the end zone we're getting there um our second goal is recruit and retain 90 of district effective and highly effective teachers and our baseline was in 2018 and we were at 87.5 percent and our current data shows us at 91 so we're looking to see that conclude at the end of june we're looking at a full year cycle increasing our racial and ethnic staff diversity by 3 percent through recruitment and retention um we began in 2018 at 42 percent and we're currently at 51 and so we're we're excited with a really increased lens for being intentional in everything that we're doing in our recruitment efforts not just hr but all schools and all divisions the next slide it's just kind of a summary of some of the things that we've done to increase our health and wellness of all employees through a vaccination incentive and covet 19 mitigation strategies we're you know really excited that last november we were able to give a stipend of over three of 300 to 77 of our employees and just you can see beyond that just all of the tracking and notification we're kind of glad that part of our lives has ended but it was massive and um you know we really we're still tracking but it's just very minute at this point you can see on the next slide just the additional mitigation stat strategies that we had in place with vaccination clinics and drive-through pcrs partnerships with walmart even last week at our transportation site we had a clinic for um you know transfer drivers and whatnot just locally moving out just outside of lacc so excited to provide all these services to our employees ms johnson um i did have a question on the recruit and retain it's on slide five are retirees or a staff that's retiring included in that percentage of on the retention aspect okay i i was going to say i don't they wouldn't count towards that number okay thank you i just wanted as long as we could yes any other questions on people i do i have a question we had mentioned that turnover had possibly um affected ricker and so forth so i wanted to know is this something that we're seeing mirrored in other townships as well that other townships are struggling with absolutely uh board this is a constant conversation amongst the school superintendents is staff retention and turnover actually it's probably the number one issue across the country and so yes the answer to your question is absolutely yes our number one issue i just wanted that to be vocalized so that because when you hear high turnover you think that things that things are in trouble so just want to we emphasize that that's something that's all right thank you so we can go on to operations and finance i'll next ask mr michael shaves to speak to you regarding our goals surrounding operations and finance thank you miss dr brown the first goal is the cash balance of the board to have it at 12 million or above we're well on target for that as you can as you see in each of our reports i give you each month and all the tax all the taxing funds will have a positive balance at the end of the fiscal and calendar year once we get our tax draws in to bring those up here in may and june and then the minority vendor participation that's a number that's not easily calculated mid-year so we'll have that at the end of the year as after we take the full 12 months of expenditures and compare it to prior year but we should hopefully hit that target this year any questions if not we'll go on to safety and security and finally mr roger smith with safety and security thank you dr brown we are continuing to be committed and creating safe and strong schools continue pushing the efforts of maintaining an a b or above in cleanliness with our buildings and through the blue river blue ribbon plan we have constantly strived to put in from a physical safety as well as technology safety for all of our buildings we have 17 completed the two high schools will be forthcoming and again in 2325 we will finish up the belzer fall creek and lecc mr smith i'm not sure i know who rates the cleanliness of our buildings and how that is rated can you explain that our director of operations dr nesbitt uh walks the buildings uh our custodial staff has a check sheet of what they should be doing throughout the course of each week each month and uh that checklist he walks through and rates it based off what they should be doing okay so the board has um requested a grade of a or b and we do have some c's is is that are we able to reach that a b level with every building uh we're moving in that direction we're working with those staff members in those buildings we feel uh aren't meeting the level and uh give them some support and training if needed to to move in that direction also just note we have had some absenteeism that has affected that not absenteeism actually replacement of people as they have quit resigned moved on uh that has put some buildings at uh at risk as well any other questions i just had one mr smith um i i don't see um a cleaning grade for the school year 2021 was the last line um for 20 to be in there oh okay we've had it every year oh okay oh that's right that's right covid it's called coving memory okay you did the best we could school was close for three months well dr brown mr kuznet thank you very much thank you everyone else on the on the team i do believe that we set strong board goals i bet this board sets very strong board goals and we do appreciate the updates um and knowing how we will hit the target if we haven't made it this year and how we'll hit it in the future and and how we can look at next year when formulating the goals because we'll be getting ready to do that again so thank you very much for that i appreciate that so now i think it's mr notorer and the sunnyside elementary dual language update yes thank you madam vice president members of the board and dr smith there's a team of us that will present to you this this evening on this topic but the overall proposal is to expand our two-way dual immersion program to sunnyside elementary so we're very excited to bring this to you this evening and so if we can continue to the next slide um overall recommendation expand our two-way dual immersion program and just as a reminder our two-way model consists of 50 native english speakers and 50 native spanish speakers and we're recommending that we begin with two sections at kindergarten at sunnyside for the 22-23 school year and the reason that we're bringing this to you at this time of the school year is the increasing demand from our community we have significant waiting lists at forest glen and skyles test and we need to target some of our kindergarten families spanish-speaking families from elc winding ridge as you know this is well aligned with our strategic plan and our equitable student outcomes action plan of expanding bilingual education dr brown thank you mr notre why sunnyside and sunnyside is the home of homeschool the largest number of families who are requesting immersion programming at forest glen and that's not just our weightless families that's our families in general and sunnyside has a proud bilingual principal who's with us this evening miss adizadena so we have established bilingual leadership which is very important in immersion programming sunnyside has room for growth currently we have two classrooms not in use we have four classrooms with bathrooms so we're already set there and we have other opportunities and open spaces or areas where spaces could be shared to accommodate additional classrooms and finally we have seen in the last three years a decrease in enrollment in sunnyside and immersion programming would draw in more families and currently we've expanded to five sections of kindergarten at forest glen two sections at scale's test of immersion programming and already at the start of may we have 33 families waiting and that's the start of may and we have several more months of the summer so we have families waiting and requesting again we've spoken that sunnyside is the home of the most students requesting immersion programming and you can see the enrollment that has trended downward and we feel confident the immersion programming would stop and turn that around thank you mrs laplante as we think about enrollment we would like that this would give another option to our early childhood enrollment for our families when they're with their young children they like to have lots of choices we would incorporate sunny-side enrollment into our current kindergarten enrollment at this time we enroll starting january but we'll enroll all summer long and so this would be another option that we would talk to families about at the early learning centers we would work to have a target of 50 spanish speakers in each kindergarten class and then during the 2022-23 school year we would include sunnyside as one of our options for immersion registration in november dr anderson would you speak to the program please we have three pillars or beliefs around dual language programming developing bilingual and biliterate individuals ensuring high academic achievement for all and developing a social cultural competent youth the programming will will continue to follow our one and two-way um immersion programs which is 80 of instruction in spanish which is language arts math science and social studies and 20 in english instruction which will be english language arts the core curriculum will continue to be adelante which is already used in k-6 for spanish instruction and hagerty for kindergarten monolingual resources for english instruction and we will also provide teachers with opportunities to provide feedback so that we can change our curriculum to go along with our student needs mrs johnson would you address staffing please yes for our sunny side program we would be looking at two bilingual teachers one bilingual instructional assistant and that would be staff through attrition no new ftes would be needed just as we look at our population of resignations and whatnot within the district so as you know we are committed to professional development around bilingual education and we're confident in bringing this to you at this time in the school year because we know how to do this we've provided this professional development for years for our teachers so these are things that we already do that we would simply add two additional kindergarten teachers into this system of our professional development and it's grant funded through nesp and title iii and then on the next slide we need to think about our families what would that learning look like for our families and so we would replicate much of the work that we did at scales test several years ago around family engagement nights around connecting our families with our staff members through english spanish classes and so we're confident that we would be able to meet our needs of both our english-speaking families and spanish-speaking families and that would be funded through title iii dr altmeier would you address marketing please yes good evening well when it comes to dual language in lawrence township our reputation precedes us and that is very very much to our advantage people all over the state know what's happening in our bilingual programming and there is much to be revered but that said we still need to communicate to our public this expansion so that they understand both the opportunity and the rationale for the decision of note is what ms laplante shared that we have families currently waiting as far as the marketing of this program goes those families would be contacted first they have the first opportunity to be placed in one of these two sections of kindergarten but then moving forward we would take an approach similar to that at styles test back in 2017 where we modify our website on those those pages to make sure they are reflecting the program offering we do some targeted marketing to the zip code that serves sunnyside direct contact as was shared some digital marketing by geofencing the area around sunnyside in spanish and in english with those communications so that families are aware of the program offering uh an open house with the school and then information at community events a perfect example of a community event where something like this might be appropriate it would be la fiesta uh which took place a couple weeks ago and then our dia de muertos events these events that gather large groups together we can communicate this expanded offering thank you and if the board were so inclined our next steps would be to begin by contacting those waitlist families to give them the good news that they would be able to have a bilingual education in lawrence township begin to integrate those that choice that additional choice into our enrollment options the marketing that dr altemeyer just described school-based information sessions this was critical as kyle's test and we would replicate the same process or a similar process at sunnyside recruiting staff which we already are we're always recruiting bilingual staff members as well as the professional development that i described and ensuring that the funding is there through our grant writing for the team would be happy to answer any questions that you might have outstanding board questions so it looks like our waiting list is basically english speakers so talk some more about the strategy of how we reach and beef up the spanish-speaking complement of those classrooms that's really one of the benefits of sunnyside and and one of the differences from skyle's test sunnyside has a natural boundary of spanish-speaking families who attend sunny side anyway um so where scales tests we had to go recruit families because it's not a natural boundary sunny side the families are already going to attend sunny side so it'll be much easier targeting elc winding ridge that's where many of our spanish-speaking families are now that go to sunnyside and giving them the option to go to sunnyside rather than elc winding ridge so you so the fact that we don't have a waiting list of spanish speakers at the other schools you don't think that's necessarily going to be problematic for sunnyside and it's because it's the home school yeah not at all not at all we have many many spanish-speaking families yeah okay troy and emily dr brown please go on the board what is the student demographics of sunnyside elementary and the last time i checked it was 65 spanish-speaking families it's our first predominantly hispanic school in our district yeah i know i was aware of that it's just that you know it's one thing to have the population there and it's another one if people understand you know the program and the value of the program and so they'll raise their hand it's a similar process we use to guide our families to our one-way dual programming it's personal outreach and explaining the programming and helping them make their selection yeah and then just one other thing carla i wasn't sure i was completely following the staffing by attrition so is this because we don't have as much need for positions at certain schools and so we can transfer the people over to this program is that what you meant by yes um as we look at enrollment in our kindergarten in first and second grade and just looking at the resignations it doesn't we will not need to hire any additional staff i have a question concerning slide four when it was mentioned that there has been a continued decrease in enrollment are we certain as to why that may be going why is happening there would be a variety of reasons of course you can see those years are some of our covered years and so um bringing the families back and to the school building this will attract the families okay so we're seeing that that's more related to covet than anything okay thank you board members we didn't lose elementary students we're fine elementary growth but you they did point out some kids shifted over to forest glen okay so some of you spanish speakers shifted to forest glen that was a little subtlety that was in there okay but 645 students is a very large elementary okay see dr anderson's over here shaking her head she remembers the growth that we had at sunnyside elementary those families are still with us trust me okay um can you discuss just briefly the benefits of opening sunnyside as opposing to for instance expanding scales test so i think it's a combination of what dr brown's been sharing concerning enrollment and what i was sharing about the the natural boundary of spanish speakers that are already there for skyles we do a lot of recruiting of spanish-speaking families because there's not a natural boundary there is for sunny side so i think that's the at this stage that's the primary reason and if i'm not mistaken at this point most of the kiddos in sunnyside will go to fall creek valley middle school is that correct or not correct they're actually split yeah pretty well split yeah so that won't affect the programs as they matriculate into high school help us that'll help the programs as they matriculate great great um and also the last question do you anticipate moving current immersion teachers into that program or offering that to current immersion teachers or just building the program from ground up i'm sorry as far as our current immersion teachers moving them into there it it will be posted so we'll so if they want to interpret yeah yeah all right well i think this is outstanding there are three board members that have experienced immersion with our children and it's an outstanding program and as wonderful as it was to pass the initiative last meeting on music learning for early for early learners this is equally as joyful and that both of music and foreign language have been shown to really increase executive function and to grow that that little brain get that little flower pot all fertilized so we can plant those stem seeds so this is really thrilling to me thank you thank you so much for this work all right um if there's no more questions we'll go on to uh the recommendation to expand the district w-a-n five-year fiber good evening uh dr smith members of the board mr vice president uh tonight i present to you the results of a recent request for proposals to expand our network fiber connection to the new inskeep transportation facility as well as the city of lawrence water tower which houses a location for one of the beacons for our new radio system it's it's critical that we have our own network connection to all of our facilities leaving it in the hands of say a leased connection from a third party vendor or a monthly service connection from a vendor like comcast does not provide the stability and reliability uh that we need uh to operate in at the highest level essentially so these are the results of the bid and there are only a handful of companies really in the region that that will go ahead and install fiber for a customer most of those companies want to install the fiber and then lease it to you you know on a monthly basis on a 10 or 15 or 20 year plan so only a few vendors available to you to install that but we believe we got a very good price especially given the inflationary environment i bring this to you at this time for information and we'll ask for approval later thank you questions if there are no questions we will move on to our action items the first action item is a request for approval of the document management software dr smith members of the board mr vice president i i bring back to you the information provided at the last meeting about the results of our document management software bid process uh and ask you to approve the recommended vendor as presented so moved second it's been properly moved and seconded are there questions all those in favor aye any opposed that passes that is approved okay now the recommendation to approve to expand our wide area network fiber that we just spoke of yes dr smith members of the board mr vice president uh i ask that you approve the winning vendor to install new fiber to both the transportation facility and the city of lawrence water tower as presented so moved second properly moved and seconded um all those in favor if there are no questions all those in vietnam all those in favor aye aye any opposed that passes um that is approved and now on to the personnel report dr smith members of the board i accept i ask that you accept the personnel report as submitted so moved second properly moved and seconded all those in favor of approving the personnel report as submitted any opposed no pose that passes unanimously we are on to board comments and as is our plan we'll start with ms norman thank you i just wanted to wish all of our vex robotics teams good luck as they represent our district and worlds so it's great to see the kids smiling on twitter and ready for the exciting competitions so good luck great representation and also may is mental health awareness month and i just wanted to acknowledge our district's role in supporting students and staff with mental health i mean this was going on before the pandemic but it's really accelerated the need and i'm thankful for the community partnerships that we have in our district to to support the mental health thank you no comments well and miss pocket i'm sure you have a comment i'm excited tonight our um students are having their orchestra concert uh this evening so my baby is playing in that this evening and last week was also a celebrated teacher appreciation week i am the bootleg mother that still has to get her gifts out but i held space for myself yesterday and getting that done so just thank you to all of our teachers and everyone but i just wanted to share that it was a good week last week wonderful well i would like to say happy belated mother's day to everyone in the room um if you are a mother if you're not a mother if your wife is a mother happy belated mother's day to everyone in the room we couldn't do it without you i would also like to acknowledge that this is national school nurse day tomorrow and you know from mandy purdue throughout all of our nurses throughout all of our schools this has been a heck of a couple years it's been difficult it's been straining and we appreciate you so very much it was also um an administrative week here last week and i would like to say to miss blankenship thank you thank you thank you for everything you do for this board we appreciate you every day all the time thank you so much and i would like to acknowledge that we have a special guest with us this evening miss gwen is here with us a community member we are so glad to have someone with us from the community who just wants to know what's going on in our school system and i believe did i hear you had students graduate in 76 and 81 from from lawrence schools all right so we're we're very pleased to have you with us and um come come see us and come listen anytime we're very delighted to have you with us this evening um okay so with with that being said you're getting absolutely no credit for being at this point i just want to make that clear yeah president's back do i have uh are you dr smith uh members of the board uh thank you it is the season so we're going to be busy uh please check your calendars accordingly we will thursday evening celebrate our retired teachers and many more celebrations after that so please check your calendars uh and then mr vice president the board will adjourn this meeting and you'll meet in an executive session do following so the board will hold an executive session following this board meeting so you're busy this evening we are busy this evening we're busy this time of year end of year beginning of year middle of year i like all oy it all rhymes it's really nice um so um do i have a motion to adjourn this meeting so moved we are adjourned oh this is that's right let's it bootleg mom